page_title: Thomas White (Australian politician)
section_title: Early parliamentary career
hierarchical_section_title: Thomas White (Australian politician) / Early parliamentary career
caption_attribution_description: English: Australian politician Thomas Walter White
context_page_description: Sir Thomas Walter White, KBE, DFC, VD was an Australian politician and First World War pilot. In 1914 he became one of the first airmen trained for the Australian Flying Corps, and the following year was among the first AFC members to see action when he was deployed to the Middle East with the Mesopotamian Half Flight. After carrying out several missions behind Turkish lines, he was captured in November 1915 but escaped in July 1918. White was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross and twice mentioned in despatches for his war service. He married Vera Deakin, a Red Cross worker and daughter of former Australian Prime Minister Alfred Deakin, in 1920.
  White began his parliamentary career in 1929 when he was elected to the House of Representatives as the Member for Balaclava in Victoria. He served as Minister for Trade and Customs in Joseph Lyons' United Australia Party government from 1933 to 1938, but resigned when he was excluded from Lyons' inner cabinet. He joined the Royal Australian Air Force shortly after the outbreak of the Second World War and saw service in Australia and the United Kingdom.
context_section_description: While in London, White met Vera Deakin, a Red Cross worker and daughter of former Australian Prime Minister Alfred Deakin, and soon became engaged to her. Departing Britain in September 1919, White returned to Australia via the United States and was discharged from the AIF in January 1920. He married Vera on 22 March at St John's Church of England in Toorak, despite the opposition of some of the Deakin family, including her brother-in-law Herbert Brookes. White, whose sympathies tended towards small business, considered Brookes a "business bully", hiding behind "the protection of capital". Also in 1920, White became managing director of his father's hardware company, C.J. White & Sons Pty Ltd. He continued to serve in the Citizen Military Forces (CMF, the renamed Citizen Forces), receiving promotion to major in July 1922, and commanding the 6th Battalion as a lieutenant colonel from March 1926 to March 1931. In 1923 he was awarded the Colonial Auxiliary Forces Officers' Decoration, which recognised twenty years of service. White enlisted as a special constable when Victorian police went on strike in November that year; he would later express support for groups such as the New Guard.
  White ran as a Nationalist for the House of Representatives seat of Maribyrnong in the 1925 federal elections, but lost to the sitting Labor member, James Fenton, 19,483 votes to 28,621. In 1927, he failed to win the Victorian Legislative Assembly seat of Prahran. After the Nationalists declined to endorse him as a candidate for the Senate the following year, he won the seat of Balaclava at a by-election held on 3 August 1929. He defeated his only opponent, Independent Nationalist Frederick Francis, with 28,642 votes to 16,063, to succeed retiring member William Watt. White used his maiden speech in parliament to push for construction of the Australian War Memorial in Canberra. In the federal election held that October, he defeated the Labor contender, Donald Cameron, 31,700 votes to 22,445. The United Australia Party (UAP) came to power in the December 1931 federal elections; White was returned by a margin of 30,294.
  In January 1933, White was appointed Minister for Trade and Customs in Joseph Lyons' first Ministry, replacing Henry Gullett, who had stood down due to ill-health. White had given up the directorship of C.J. White & Sons the previous year. Although he personally favoured protectionism, his portfolio was responsible for reducing tariffs, as well as attempting to increase trade with Britain as opposed to the United States and Japan. He was also in charge of book and film censorship; for the latter he established an advisory board, chaired by Robert Garran, to make recommendations to him. In the September 1934 federal elections, White retained Balaclava by a margin 25,769 votes. That year he became Australian chairman of the Royal Life Saving Society, serving until 1951; he was also an active supporter of such organisations as Legacy and the Royal Flying Doctor Service. Vera White, who had been appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire for her wartime work, also pursued philanthropic activities, holding management or committee roles with the Royal Children's Hospital, the Victorian Society for Crippled Children and Adults, and the Red Cross.
  The October 1937 federal elections saw White returned by a margin of 20,954. In July 1938, he represented Australia at an inter-governmental conference on Jewish refugees held at Évian, France, to discuss the growing numbers of Jewish emigrants seeking to leave Germany and occupied territories. He sympathised with refugees he spoke to during the conference, but hedged his offer of support, saying that, "As we have no real racial problem, we are not desirous of importing one by encouraging any scheme of large-scale foreign migration". Australia agreed to accept 15,000 refugees over three years. White's reaction to the Australian government's support for the Munich Agreement was to diarise: "I think we should hang our heads that we did not stand up to the bully of Europe ... It may 
caption: Thomas Walter White
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