page_title: Clyde Cameron
section_title: Early political career
hierarchical_section_title: Clyde Cameron / Early political career
caption_attribution_description: English: A 1960 black and white portrait of Clyde Cameron, MP for Hindmarsh
context_page_description: Clyde Robert Cameron, AO, was an Australian politician. He was a member of the Australian Labor Party and served in the House of Representatives from 1949 to 1980, representing the Division of Hindmarsh. He was a leading figure in the Australian labour movement and held ministerial office in the Whitlam Government as Minister for Labour, Labor and Immigration, and Science and Consumer Affairs.
context_section_description: Cameron was the most powerful figure in the South Australian labour movement in the years immediately after World War II. At the 1949 election, he was elected to the House of Representatives for the safe Labor seat of Hindmarsh and left his brother Don (later a senator) in charge of the South Australian AWU. He rapidly made his mark as one of the most aggressive and uncompromising Labor members ever to enter the Australian Parliament. Cameron regarded the conservatives with a deep and personal hatred and made no secret of it. He rapidly emerged as one of the leaders of the left wing of the Caucus, led at that time by Eddie Ward, who became Cameron's mentor. Nonetheless, he was an intelligent and able parliamentarian.
  It was the tragedy of Labor politicians of Cameron's generation that Labor spent almost a quarter of a century in Opposition, from 1949 to 1972, with the result that Cameron, like many others, spent his best years out of office. During the Labor Split of the 1950s, Cameron became a leading supporter of federal Labor Leader Dr H.V. Evatt and an opponent of the right-wing Catholic faction. He was among those who insisted for all the "Groupers" to be expelled from the party. He also conducted a long feud with the right-wing (but anti-Grouper) federal leadership of the AWU led by Tom Dougherty, one of a long list of people that Cameron detested.
  By the 1960s, Cameron realised Labor would never win a federal election again unless it could find both a leader and a set of policies acceptable to an increasingly middle-class electorate. Ward's death in 1963 marked the end of the old Depression-era leftism in the federal Caucus. The younger leftist leaders such as Cameron, Jim Cairns and Tom Uren were sober enough to adapt to the changed circumstances. Cameron became increasingly critical of Arthur Calwell's leadership but supported Calwell in his passionately opposing the Vietnam War.
  Calwell retired in 1967 and was succeeded by Gough Whitlam. Although he disagreed with Whitlam on many issues, after 1968, Cameron became a supporter of Whitlam's leadership. In 1969, Whitlam made Cameron Shadow Minister for Employment. Cameron's decisive influence helped Whitlam gain control of the Federal Executive. In 1970, he supported Whitlam's intervention in the Victorian branch of the Labor Party, which was controlled by the extreme left.
caption: Clyde Cameron c. 1960
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