Ben Chifley

Chifley was born in Bathurst in 1885, left school for the railways, and worked his way up to engine driver while organising for the locomotive union. He entered parliament in 1928, served briefly as Defence Minister under James Scullin in 1931, then lost his seat in the wipeout that year. A decade followed outside parliament - royal commission on banking in 1935, munitions bureaucrat in 1940 - before he won his seat back and became Treasurer in the Curtin government in 1941. When Curtin died in office in 1945, Chifley won the leadership ballot and took over a month before war's end. He won re-election in 1946, the first Labor government to do so, and spent three years building: the Snowy Mountains Scheme, ASIO, the Australian National University, expanded immigration, extended welfare after a successful constitutional amendment. His attempt to nationalise the banks turned business and voters against him, and Robert Menzies beat him in 1949. Chifley stayed on as opposition leader until his death in 1951, two decades before Labor returned to power.