(1880–1944)
Maurice
Blackburn graduated in Arts (1906) and Law (1909) while working as a
teacher and librarian. Admitted to the Bar in 1910, he established Maurice
Blackburn & Co. in 1922. He dealt principally in trade union law, but
also took cases involving civil liberties.
Active in both the Labor Party and Victorian Socialist Party, in 1917
Blackburn lost the Victorian parliamentary seat of Essendon to which
he had been elected three years earlier, because of his opposition to
the war. Later, as the member for Fitzroy, he succeeded in carrying
the Women’s Qualification Act (1926), aimed at removing discrimination
against women. He was elected Speaker of the Victorian Parliament in
1933 and moved to the federal seat of Bourke the following year, holding
it until 1943.
Although unwavering in opposing conscription for overseas service,
Blackburn lost Labor Party support through his advocacy of a citizen
army, based on compulsory national service. After the war, he took a
leading role in the reformulation of the Labor Party’s attitude towards
nationalisation. The ‘Blackburn interpretation’, supporting non-exploitative
private ownership of the instruments of production, was adopted in 1921
and restated in 1948.
Blackburn was frequently at odds with the Party over its hesitant attitude
towards Fascism and was expelled in 1941 because of his support of the
Australia-Soviet Friendship League. Blackburn became President of the
Australian Council for Civil Liberties in 1940 and brought many issues
before parliament. His opposition to the first national security bill
passed by the Menzies government cost him further Labor support. Blackburn
lost his seat in the 1943 election, but it was won in 1946 by his widow,
who held it from 1946 to 1949.
Doris Blackburn was president of the Women’s International League for
Peace and Freedom and a founder of both the Aborigine Advancement League
and the Federal Council for Advancement of Aborigines and Torres Strait
Islanders. She died in 1970.
Photo: Parliament of Victoria
