member of the Western Australian Legislative Council
Hal Colebatch took which position from May 1919 to Jul 1923?
Hal Colebatch Sir Harry Pateshall Colebatch CMG ( 29 March 1872 – 12 February 1953 ) was a long-serving and occasionally controversial figure in Western Australian politics . He was a member of the Western Australian Legislative Council for nearly 20 years , the twelfth Premier of Western Australia for a month in 1919 , agent-general in London for five years , and a federal senator for four years . Early life . Hal Colebatch was born in Wolferlow in Herefordshire , England , on 29 March 1872 . His family migrated to Australia in 1878 , settling at Goolwa in South Australia . Colebatch left school in 1883 at the age of 11 , because his father could not afford to continue his education . He then found work as an office boy and junior reporter for a local newspaper , the Norwood Free Press . When this paper collapsed , he worked for a series of short-lived papers on the South Australian goldfields . He worked for the Petersburg Times and the Laura Standard . In 1888 , he moved to Broken Hill , New South Wales , where he worked for six years as reporter for the Silver Age . There , he reported on a number of strike meetings in 1892 , and was subsequently summoned as a Crown witness in the prosecution of some strike leaders . In 1894 , Colebatch migrated to Western Australia to take up a position as reporter on the Coolgardie newspaper Golden Age . After the collapse of the Golden Age the following year , he moved to Kalgoorlie to report on the Kalgoorlie Miner . In 1896 , he moved to Perth to join the Morning Herald as mining editor and chess editor . Colebatch was a keen chess player at this time and , in 1898 , he won the state title , thereby becoming Western Australias third chess champion . On 29 April 1896 , Colebatch married Mary Maude Saunders in Perth . The press gallery ban . In 1898 , Hal Colebatch telegraphed to the Kalgoorlie Miner a report on a fist-fight in the state parliament between two members . Information on the fight had been provided by a police inspector who had been on duty in the House , and had been instructed to brief reporters . The information was greatly exaggerated . However , by the time Colebatch discovered this fact , the telegraph office was closed . The Kalgoorlie Miner ran the story on the front page . The premier , Sir John Forrest , was furious about the report because of its potential effect on investment in the state . The government subsequently sued the proprietors of the Kalgoorlie Miner for publishing a libel , but the case was unsuccessful . Forrest then ordered Colebatch to be barred from the press gallery . On 19 October , the sergeant-at-arms forcibly ejected Colebatch and , the following day , the latter indicated his intention to sue for assault . Colebatch subsequently received plenty of support in the House from members who felt that he had been unfairly treated ; and , shortly afterwards , his suspension was lifted . In Northam . In 1904 , Colebatch moved to Northam , where he bought the Northam Advertiser . He ran the paper until 1923 , when he gave it to his sons as a reward for their war service . He would continue contributing to the paper for the rest of his life . In Northam , Colebatch met and became friends with James Mitchell . Colebatch encouraged Mitchell to stand for parliament and , in 1905 , he managed Mitchells successful campaign for election to the Legislative Assembly seat of Northam . Mitchell would hold the seat until 1933 , and this would later prevent Colebatch from contesting the lower house seat himself . From 1909 to 1912 , Colebatch was the mayor of Northam . In February 1912 , he formed a Northam branch of the Liberal League . In Western Australian politics . In 1910 , Colebatch unsuccessfully contested a by-election for the then upper-house rural seat of East Province . The following year , he contested the Legislative Assembly seat of Avon but was again unsuccessful . On 14 May 1912 , he was elected to the Legislative Council seat of East Province in a by-election . There , he played a key role in the Legislative Councils persistent opposition to much of the more radical legislation put forward by John Scaddans Labor government . When Scaddans government fell in 1916 , Colebatch was appointed Colonial Secretary and minister for education in Frank Wilsons government . The following year , he became deputy premier under Henry Lefroy . That year also , he oversaw the establishment of the first high schools in regional Western Australia . The Spanish flu crises . In the latter half of 1918 , Spanish flu was sweeping the world but had not yet broken out in Western Australia . As minister for health , Colebatch was responsible for quarantine . This presented a series of challenges . Late in 1918 , with Lefroy absent and Colebatch acting as premier as well as health minister , the troopship Boonah returned to Western Australia carrying soldiers infected with the Spanish flu . Colebatch was required to maintain a balance between the conflicting requirements of maintaining an effective quarantine while treating and repatriating the returned troops . Once the Boonah crisis was over , Colebatch was widely seen to have handled it responsibly and effectively . Early in the new year , another crisis eventuated when the Spanish flu broke out in Victoria and South Australia . Both states initially declined to declare infection and close their borders , so Colebatch closed Western Australias borders unilaterally . His decision greatly angered the acting prime minister William Watt , but he was strongly supported in Western Australia . Premiership . On 17 April 1919 , Lefroy resigned as premier , and Colebatch succeeded him . He remains the only premier of Western Australia to have governed from the Legislative Council , having done so on the understanding that an Assembly seat would be found for him . Colebatch continued as colonial secretary and minister for education , and also took on the treasury and railways portfolios . He brought Mitchell into the ministry as minister for lands . Within two weeks , Colebatch had yet another crisis to deal with : the Fremantle wharf crisis of 1919 . The labour crisis dragged on for almost a month , culminating in one of the most violent confrontations in Western Australian history . Lumpers objected to goods being unloaded by non-union labour from the ship Dimboola . Colebatch was the target of a barrage of projectiles when he personally confronted the unionists . One of the unionists , Tom Edwards , was killed by police . Unlike previous crises , Colebatch was not seen to have handled the crisis well , and he sustained heavy criticism during and after it . On 17 May , Colebatch resigned , having been premier for exactly one month . It remains the states shortest premiership term on record . His decision to resign was influenced by the stress of the wharf crisis and extensive subsequent criticism . However his health was an issue , and he had been unable to find a Legislative Assembly seat in a country electorate as desired . H.G.P . Colebatch ( 2004 ) also asserts that Colebatch resigned as premier because he was not ambitious and had not wanted the job in the first place . Colebatch handed over the premiership to his friend Mitchell . He retained the public health and education portfolios , and added that of agriculture . He continued as deputy premier and leader of the government in the Legislative Council . He was responsible for the creation of a North West department and became its minister a month later . In April 1921 , he relinquished agriculture and public health portfolios , instead taking on the justice portfolio . After the 1921 election , Colebatch was the only government minister in the Legislative Council , thus assuming a substantial workload . Agent-general for Western Australia . Colebatch was appointed a Commander ( CMG ) of the Order of St Michael and St George in the New Years Honours of 1923 and , shortly afterwards , resigned his seat to take up appointment as the states agent-general in London , in which role he attracted this praise from a Perth newspaper : . . . the Agent-General ( Mr H.P . Colebatch ) is regarded in England as one of the most able representatives this country has ever had in London . He was due to finish his term in November 1926 , but an election was due in Western Australia at that time , and neither Colebatch nor the incumbent Labor government wished Colebatch to return during the election campaign . Colebatchs term was therefore extended into 1927 , in which year he was made Knight bachelor and travelled widely in Europe , having a meeting with Benito Mussolini . When Colebatch returned to Western Australia in 1927 , the premier Philip Collier commissioned him to produce a book commemorating the states centenary . A Story of a Hundred Years : Western Australia 1829–1929 , edited by Hal Colebatch , was published in 1929 . In federal politics . While he was working on A Story of a Hundred Years , Colebatch was asked by prime minister Stanley Bruce to sit on a royal commission into the Constitution of Australia . The commission travelled throughout Australia and held 198 sittings but its conclusions were of little or no consequence . In 1928 , Colebatch was elected as a federal senator . He took his seat on 1 July 1929 , holding it until 20 March 1933 , when he was again offered the position of agent-general for Western Australia in London . Colebatchs time as a senator was a frustrating period for him , as his advocacy of free trade as a means of international co-operation and peace was extremely unpopular at the time . His most important contribution was the establishment of the Standing Committee on Regulations and Ordinances , whose purpose is to vet government regulations made by executive action without reference to parliament , to ensure that they do not adversely affect the rights of citizens . Later , he became heavily involved in the Western Australian secession campaign and , after becoming agent-general for the second time , he was asked to lead a delegation which unsuccessfully petitioned the British parliament for secession . Later years . Colebatchs second term as agent-general for Western Australia was from 1933 until 1939 . During this time , he again travelled widely throughout Europe . In 1934 the Western Australian Secession Delegation arrive in London , Colebatch made many speeches and argued for the cause . His focus was on the preamble to the Commonwealth of Australia Constitution Act in particular the word indissoluble questioning as to whether the British Parliament could bind a person to a country for all time . According to his memoirs , he made contact with anti-Nazi Germans who were trying to forestall the rise of Adolf Hitler . After returning to Western Australia , he worked tirelessly to awaken Australia to the necessity of preparing for war . He was widowed early in 1940 . On 11 May 1940 he was elected to the Legislative Council for the Metropolitan Province . In 1944 he married Marion Frances Gibson . He held his Legislative Council seat until the election of 1948 when the Liberal Party failed to dissuade him from nominating , and then endorsed both him and its preferred candidate , Harry Hearn , who won comfortably . In his final years , Colebatch applied himself to writing an autobiography , which has never been published . He died on 12 February 1953 after a brief illness and was honoured with a state funeral the following day . His second wife and three sons survived him . The third son , also named Hal Colebatch , was a poet , novelist , solicitor and writer on legal and political subjects . Unusually , Hal Junior wrote a biography of Hal Senior . References . - De Garis , Brian K . ( 1962 ) . A Political Biography of Sir Hal Colebatch . Masters Thesis , University of Western Australia .