Reginald Francis Xavier "Rex" Connor (26 January 190722 August 1977) was an Australian politician who served as a member of the

House of Representatives House of Representatives is the name of legislative bodies in many countries and sub-national entitles. In many countries, the House of Representatives is the lower house of a bicameral legislature, with the corresponding upper house often c ...

from 1963 to his death, representing the Labor Party. He was the Minister for Minerals and Energy in the Whitlam Government from 1972 to 1975. Connor was born in

Wollongong Wollongong ( ), colloquially referred to as The Gong, is a city located in the Illawarra region of New South Wales, Australia. The name is believed to originate from the Dharawal language, meaning either 'five islands/clouds', 'ground near w ...

New South Wales ) , nickname = , image_map = New South Wales in Australia.svg , map_caption = Location of New South Wales in AustraliaCoordinates: , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name = Australia , established_title = Before federation , es ...

. He served on the Wollongong City Council from 1938 to 1945, and then in the

New South Wales Legislative Assembly The New South Wales Legislative Assembly is the lower of the two houses of the Parliament of New South Wales, an Australian state. The upper house is the New South Wales Legislative Council. Both the Assembly and Council sit at Parliament Ho ...

from 1950 to 1963. After entering federal politics, Connor became an ally of

Gough Whitlam Edward Gough Whitlam (11 July 191621 October 2014) was the 21st prime minister of Australia, serving from 1972 to 1975. The longest-serving federal leader of the Australian Labor Party (ALP) from 1967 to 1977, he was notable for being the h ...

, who appointed him to cabinet when Labor won the 1972 election. As Minister for Minerals and Energy, he was noted for his strident

economic nationalism Economic nationalism, also called economic patriotism and economic populism, is an ideology that favors state interventionism over other market mechanisms, with policies such as domestic control of the economy, labor, and capital formation, inclu ...

. However, Connor is best known as the central figure in the " loans affair", which arose from his attempts to secure

petrodollar Petrodollar recycling is the international spending or investment of a country's revenues from petroleum exports ("petrodollars"). It generally refers to the phenomenon of major petroleum-exporting states, mainly the OPEC members plus Russi ...

loans from Middle Eastern financiers. His resignation from cabinet in October 1975 precipitated the constitutional crisis which resulted in Whitlam's dismissal a month later.

Early life

Connor was born in

, where he lived all his life and where he was represented in the

and Australian Parliaments. Descended from Irish Catholics, he was educated at state schools, including Wollongong High School, of which he graduated as dux, despite contracting

pneumonia Pneumonia is an inflammatory condition of the lung primarily affecting the small air sacs known as alveoli. Symptoms typically include some combination of productive or dry cough, chest pain, fever, and difficulty breathing. The severit ...

in his final year. Due to his father's death in 1925, he gave up his intention of becoming an analytical chemist and became an articled clerk. He qualified in law but was twice rejected for registration as a solicitor, the result of his dismissal by his former employer. Instead, he went into business as a car dealer and later took up farming. In 1931 he married Amelia Searl. From 1938 to 1945 he was an Alderman on the Wollongong City Council.

State politics

In 1940, when the NSW ALP was split into three factions, Connor contested the federal seat of

Werriwa The Division of Werriwa is an Australian electoral division in the state of New South Wales. The name Werriwa derives from a local Aboriginal name for Lake George, which was located in the division when it was established in 1900. The division ...

for the so-called " Hughes-Evans Labor Party", the left-wing faction which had split from the recently reunified ALP in NSW, led by William (Bill) McKell. Subsequently, some members of the State Labor Party joined the Communist Party of Australia, and some have been shown to have held "dual tickets" throughout the period. he remained in the ALP when most of the Hughes-Evans faction were expelled in 1941. In 1950 Connor was elected to the

for the seat of Wollongong-Kembla, where he served until 1963. He was partly responsible for the introduction of the state's ''Clean Air Act 1961''. Connor remained a backbencher reportedly as he was not a supporter of the dominant Catholic right-wing of the NSW ALP.

Federal politics

In 1963 Connor quit state politics and was elected to the

Australian House of Representatives The House of Representatives is the lower house of the bicameral Parliament of Australia, the upper house being the Senate. Its composition and powers are established in Chapter I of the Constitution of Australia. The term of members of ...

for the Wollongong-based seat of

Cunningham Cunningham is a surname of Scottish origin, see Clan Cunningham. Notable people sharing this surname A–C *Aaron Cunningham (born 1986), American baseball player *Abe Cunningham, American drummer * Adrian Cunningham (born 1960), Australian ...

at the 1963 election. In

Canberra Canberra ( ) is the capital city of Australia. Founded following the federation of the colonies of Australia as the seat of government for the new nation, it is Australia's largest inland city and the eighth-largest city overall. The ci ...

, Connor developed a reputation as an eccentric. A large, shabbily dressed man who always wore a hat long after hats had gone out of fashion, Connor seldom spoke in the House and never spoke to journalists. He kept his real age a secret (several obituarists assumed that he had actually been born no earlier than 1908). After an incident in which he ripped a clock off a wall in Parliament House and threw it across the room in a rage, he was unofficially known as "The Strangler".

Whitlam Government

At the 1972 election, Labor came to power under

, and Connor was elected to the front-bench and appointed Minister for Minerals and Energy. In this portfolio, he sought to develop an Australian-controlled mining and energy sector, one not controlled by the mining companies he disliked. Among his plans were a national energy grid and a gas pipe-line across Australia from the

North West Shelf The North West Shelf is a continental shelf region of Western Australia. It includes an extensive oil and gas region off the North West Australia coast in the Pilbara region. Geology Considerable parts of the region are the highest prospective ...

gas fields to the cities of the south-east. He liked to recite a piece of poetry by

Sam Walter Foss Sam Walter Foss (June 19, 1858 – February 26, 1911) was an American librarian and poet whose works included ''The House by the Side of the Road'' and ''The Coming American.'' Life and career left, Birthplace of Sam Foss in Candia, New Hampsh ...

: :''Give me men to match my mountains,'' :''Give me men to match my plains,'' :''Men with freedom in their visions'' :''And creation in their veins.'' Connor's economic nationalism was popular with the Labor rank-and-file, and the

1973 oil crisis The 1973 oil crisis or first oil crisis began in October 1973 when the members of the Organization of Arab Petroleum Exporting Countries (OAPEC), led by Saudi Arabia, proclaimed an oil embargo. The embargo was targeted at nations that had su ...

seemed to many to be a vindication of his views. After the 1974 election he topped the

Caucus A caucus is a meeting of supporters or members of a specific political party or movement. The exact definition varies between different countries and political cultures. The term originated in the United States, where it can refer to a meeting ...

ballot for the second Whitlam ministry. But the flood of

s which accompanied the energy crisis proved to be Connor's undoing. During 1974 Connor sought to bypass the usual loan raising processes and raise money in the Middle East through an intermediary, a mysterious

Pakistan Pakistan ( ur, ), officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan ( ur, , label=none), is a country in South Asia. It is the world's List of countries and dependencies by population, fifth-most populous country, with a population of almost 24 ...

i banker called Tirath Khemlani. Because of strong opposition from the Treasury and the Attorney-General's Department about the legality of the loan (and about Khemlani's general bona fides), Cabinet decided in May 1975 that only the Treasurer, not Connor, was authorised to negotiate foreign loans in the name of the Australian government. Nevertheless, Connor went on negotiating through Khemlani for a huge petrodollar loan for his various development projects, confident that if he succeeded no-one would blame him, and if he failed no-one would know. The Opposition proclaimed the Loans Affair a "reprehensible circumstance", which justified the blocking of supply in the Senate, leading to the dismissal of the Whitlam government a few weeks later by

Governor-General Governor-general (plural ''governors-general''), or governor general (plural ''governors general''), is the title of an office-holder. In the context of governors-general and former British colonies, governors-general are appointed as viceroy t ...

, Sir John Kerr. The journalist Paul Kelly wrote in his book ''November 1975'': "It was the national interest that drove Rex Connor. He can be criticised for his naivety and poor judgement. But there is no charge against Connor's integrity... The Opposition implied in the lobbies that ministers were chasing personal gain. There is no evidence for this." Nevertheless, by the time Labor returned to office in

1983 The year 1983 saw both the official beginning of the Internet and the first mobile cellular telephone call. Events January * January 1 – The migration of the ARPANET to TCP/IP is officially completed (this is considered to be the beginning ...

, Connor's economic nationalism and dreams of massive state investment in energy projects had been totally rejected.

Later years

Connor's wife died in April 1977 and he died suddenly in

of a

coronary occlusion A coronary occlusion is the partial or complete obstruction of blood flow in a coronary artery. This condition may cause a heart attack. In some patients coronary occlusion causes only mild pain, tightness or vague discomfort which may be ignored ...

in August of that year. He was survived by their three sons. One of his sons, Rex Connor junior, founded and led the Advance Australia Party.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Connor, Rex 1907 births 1977 deaths Australian Labor Party members of the Parliament of Australia Members of the Cabinet of Australia Members of the Australian House of Representatives Members of the Australian House of Representatives for Cunningham People from Wollongong Members of the New South Wales Legislative Assembly 1975 Australian constitutional crisis Australian Labor Party members of the Parliament of New South Wales Australian nationalists 20th-century Australian politicians