John Edmund Duggan (30 December 1910 – 19 June 1993) was a member of the

Queensland Legislative Assembly The Legislative Assembly of Queensland is the sole chamber of the unicameral Parliament of Queensland established under the Constitution of Queensland. Elections are held every four years and are done by full preferential voting. The Assembly ...

. He was the

Deputy Premier of Queensland The deputy premier of Queensland is a role in the Government of Queensland assigned to a responsible Minister in the Australian state of Queensland. It has second ranking behind the premier of Queensland in Cabinet, and its holder serves as act ...

from 1953 until 1957 and

Leader of the Opposition of Queensland The Leader of the Opposition in Queensland is the title of the leader of the largest minority political party or coalition of parties, known as the Opposition, in the Parliament of Queensland. Prior to 1898, opposition to the government of the ...

from 1958 until 1966.

Early life

Duggan was born at

Port Augusta Port Augusta is a small city in South Australia. Formerly a port, seaport, it is now a road traffic and Junction (rail), railway junction city mainly located on the east coast of the Spencer Gulf immediately south of the gulf's head and about ...

South Australia South Australia (commonly abbreviated as SA) is a state in the southern central part of Australia. It covers some of the most arid parts of the country. With a total land area of , it is the fourth-largest of Australia's states and territories ...

, the son of John Stephen Duggan and his wife Charlotte (née Mathieson). He was educated at the Marree and Hoyleton primary schools before attending a

Marist Brothers The Marist Brothers of the Schools, commonly known as simply the Marist Brothers, is an international community of Catholic religious institute of brothers. In 1817, St. Marcellin Champagnat, a Marist priest from France, founded the Marist Brother ...

college in South Australia. By the age of 14 he was orphaned with his mother dying in December 1922 during child birth and his father dying from

spinal tuberculosis Pott disease is tuberculosis of the spine, usually due to haematogenous spread from other sites, often the lungs. The lower thoracic and upper lumbar vertebrae areas of the spine are most often affected. It causes a kind of tuberculous arthriti ...

two years later and Duggan and his siblings were cared for by an auntie and uncle in

Toowoomba Toowoomba ( , nicknamed 'The Garden City' and 'T-Bar') is a city in the Toowoomba Region of the Darling Downs, Queensland, Australia. It is west of Queensland's capital city Brisbane by road. The urban population of Toowoomba as of the 2021 C ...

. He then left school and took up a job as a sales assistant to help support his younger brothers and sisters. He gained official leave from parliament to join the

Australian Army The Australian Army is the principal Army, land warfare force of Australia, a part of the Australian Defence Force (ADF) along with the Royal Australian Navy and the Royal Australian Air Force. The Army is commanded by the Chief of Army (Austral ...

in 1941 during

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

, serving in the 25th Battalion seeing action in

New Guinea New Guinea (; Hiri Motu Hiri Motu, also known as Police Motu, Pidgin Motu, or just Hiri, is a language of Papua New Guinea, which is spoken in surrounding areas of Port Moresby (Capital of Papua New Guinea). It is a simplified version of ...

. By the time he was discharged in 1944 he had risen to the rank of

captain Captain is a title, an appellative for the commanding officer of a military unit; the supreme leader of a navy ship, merchant ship, aeroplane, spacecraft, or other vessel; or the commander of a port, fire or police department, election precinct, e ...

.DUGGAN, JOHN EDMUND
— World War II Nominal Roll. Retrieved 6 April 2016.

Political career

Duggan was the state president of the Shop Assistants Union and also president of the Toowoomba branch of the ALP at just 21 years of age. Three years later, he won the seat of

for the Labor Party in the 1935

by-election A by-election, also known as a special election in the United States and the Philippines, a bye-election in Ireland, a bypoll in India, or a Zimni election (Urdu: ضمنی انتخاب, supplementary election) in Pakistan, is an election used to f ...

to replace the sitting member,

Evan Llewelyn Evan John Llewelyn (30 June 1875 – 11 June 1967) was an Australian politician. He was the Labor member for Toowoomba in the Legislative Assembly of Queensland from 1925 to 1929 and from 1932 to 1935. He was the son of Henry Llewellyn, w ...

. He went on to represent Toowoomba for the next 22 years.

Government Minister

In 1947 Duggan was promoted to the Transport portfolio, a post he retained under Ned Hanlon and

Vince Gair Vincent Clair Gair (25 February 190111 November 1980) was an Australian politician. He served as Premier of Queensland from 1952 until 1957, when his stormy relations with the trade union movement saw him expelled from the Labor Party. He was e ...

. From 1953 onward, he was also deputy premier. He lost his cabinet posts when Gair led his most of his ministry out of the ALP and formed the

Queensland Labor Party The Queensland Labor Party (QLP) was a political party of Queensland, Australia formed in 1957 by a breakaway group of the then ruling Labor Party Government after the expulsion of Premier Vince Gair. In 1962 the party became the Queensland se ...

in 1957.

Party Leadership

Duggan, the sole minister not to defect, succeeded Gair as state Labor leader. When Gair's government sought

supply Supply may refer to: *The amount of a resource that is available **Supply (economics), the amount of a product which is available to customers **Materiel, the goods and equipment for a military unit to fulfill its mission *Supply, as in confidenc ...

, Duggan led Labor to vote against the motion. The

Coalition A coalition is a group formed when two or more people or groups temporarily work together to achieve a common goal. The term is most frequently used to denote a formation of power in political or economical spaces. Formation According to ''A Gui ...

, led by

Frank Nicklin Sir George Francis Reuben Nicklin, (6 August 1895 – 29 January 1978) was an Australian politician. He was the Premier of Queensland from 1957 to 1968, the first non-Australian Labor Party (Queensland Branch), Labor Party premier since 1932.

, also voted against the motion and brought the government down. At the ensuing election, Duggan led Labor to second place in the overall vote and 20 seats. However, since every ALP MP was opposed by a QLP challenger and vice versa, the Labor vote was hopelessly divided. The

first past the post In a first-past-the-post electoral system (FPTP or FPP), formally called single-member plurality voting (SMP) when used in single-member districts or informally choose-one voting in contrast to ranked voting, or score voting, voters cast their ...

system denied the Labor forces the option of directing preferences to each other even if they'd wanted to. Taking advantage of the large number of three-cornered contests, Nicklin led the Coalition to a decisive victory, taking 42 seats against only 31 for the two Labor forces combined. Duggan himself was defeated by

Liberal Liberal or liberalism may refer to: Politics * a supporter of liberalism ** Liberalism by country * an adherent of a Liberal Party * Liberalism (international relations) * Sexually liberal feminism * Social liberalism Arts, entertainment and m ...

Mervyn Anderson Mervyn John Reginald "Curly" Anderson (4 April 1909 – 14 November 1971) was a member of the Queensland Legislative Assembly. Biography Anderson was born at Toowoomba, Queensland, the son of John Anderson and his wife Clara Jane (née Harrold ...

. The Labor Party was eager to get Duggan back into the legislature. Despite having no connection with the electorate of Gregory in central Queensland, he contested a by-election for that seat. To no avail: he was defeated by a local Country Party candidate, Sir Wallace Rae. In March 1958, Duggan's successor as state Labor leader, Les Wood, suddenly died. Duggan became the ALP candidate for Wood's seat of North Toowoomba. After scoring a comfortable win in the constituency, he returned to the Labor leadership. North Toowoomba was abolished before the next state election and Duggan followed most of his constituents into the new seat of Toowoomba West. He represented the electorate until 1969 when he retired from parliament. Duggan served as opposition leader until 1966, a time filled with difficulty. He not only had to deal with the presence of the QLP, which merged into the Democratic Labor Party in 1962, but was faced with particularly strenuous infighting within what was left of the ALP's parliamentary representation. His position was made even more difficult with the reintroduction of

preferential voting {{short description, Election systems Preferential voting or preference voting (PV) may refer to different election systems or groups of election systems: * Ranked voting methods, all election methods that involve ranking candidates in order of pr ...

in 1963. As a result, the DLP not only siphoned off votes from the ALP, but directed its preferences to the Coalition. Thus, the Coalition won elections in 1963 and 1966 without serious difficulty. Following the 1966 election Duggan supported

Jack Houston John William Houston (30 December 1919 – 27 October 2008) was an Australian politician. He was the Australian Labor Party (Queensland Branch), Labor member for Electoral district of Bulimba, Bulimba in the Legislative Assembly of Queensland f ...

's successful challenge to deputy leader

Eric Lloyd Eric Lloyd (born David Eric Lloyd Morelli; May 19, 1986) is an American actor, musician, and producer. Lloyd is best known for work as a child actor in such roles as Charlie Calvin in Disney's ''The Santa Clause'' film trilogy and the follow-u ...

. Three months later on 11 October 1966 Duggan abruptly resigned as leader due to a "taxation difficulty of some magnitude" with Houston replacing him. Having left state politics, Duggan remained in public life. He was elected to the

Toowoomba City Council The City of Toowoomba was a local government area in the Darling Downs region of Queensland, Australia, encompassing the centre and inner suburbs of the regional city of Toowoomba. The City covered an area of , and existed as a local governm ...

and was

Mayor of Toowoomba This is a list of mayors of the City of Toowoomba and the Toowoomba Region, Queensland, Australia. In March 2008 the City of Toowoomba was amalgamated with the Shires of Crows Nest, Rosalie, Jondaryan, Cambooya, Clifton, Millmerran, and ...

in 1981.

Personal life

Boxing Day Boxing Day is a holiday celebrated after Christmas Day, occurring on the second day of Christmastide (26 December). Though it originated as a holiday to give gifts to the poor, today Boxing Day is primarily known as a shopping holiday. It ...

, 1935 he married Beatrice Mary Dunne at St Patrick's Cathedral in Toowoomba and together had one son and one daughter. Duggan died in June 1993 and his funeral was held at St Patrick's CathedralMotion Of Condolence
—

Hansard ''Hansard'' is the traditional name of the transcripts of parliamentary debates in Britain and many Commonwealth countries. It is named after Thomas Curson Hansard (1776–1833), a London printer and publisher, who was the first official print ...

. Retrieved 16 April 2016. and proceeded to the

Drayton and Toowoomba Cemetery Drayton and Toowoomba Cemetery is a heritage-listed cemetery at the corner of South Street and Anzac Avenue, Harristown, Queensland, Australia. It was surveyed in May 1850, and is one of the earliest surviving cemeteries in Queensland. The cem ...

.Deceased search
—

Toowoomba Regional Council The Toowoomba Region is a local government area located in the Darling Downs part of Queensland, Australia. Established in 2008, it was preceded by several previous local government areas with histories extending back to the early 1900s and bey ...

. Retrieved 16 April 2016.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Duggan, John Edmund Members of the Queensland Legislative Assembly 1910 births 1993 deaths Deputy Premiers of Queensland Leaders of the Opposition in Queensland Australian Labor Party members of the Parliament of Queensland 20th-century Australian politicians People from Port Augusta Australian Army personnel of World War II Australian Army officers