Premier of NSW
Robert Heffron was born on the 10th September 1890 at Thames in New Zealand. He studied metallurgy after leaving school at the age of 15, and emigrated to California to search for gold with an older brother when he was 19. Though he found work as a labourer, mule driver and carpenter, Heffron found no fortune, and returned to New Zealand in 1912. In New Zealand Heffron joined the Socialist Party, took part in an eight-month miners’ strike, and was appointed organise for the Auckland General Labourers’ Union. He studied Law part time and married Jessie Bjornstad in 1917.
Heffron moved to Melbourne to evade military service and in 1919 became organiser for the Federal Clothing Trades Union. He moved to Sydney in 1921 to take up another position in a trade union, Secretary of the Federal Marine Stewards’ and Pantrymens’ Association of Australasia, a militant union involved deeply in the waterfront upheavals of the 1920s.
In 1930 Heffron won the Legislative Assembly seat of Botany in the Labor landslide, as a member of J.T. Lang’s government. In Opposition after 1932, Heffron became a central player in the battles for control of the NSW Labor Party under Lang. With the support of the rank-and-file in Botany, and that of left-wing unions in the Labor Council, Heffron opposed Lang’s dictatorial control of caucus. Lang in turn engineered Heffron’s expulsion from the Labor Party over his supposed Communist sympathies and history of involvement in organising in Marxist-leaning unions. In exile, Heffron organised the Industrial Labor Party which contested Lang Labor held seats.
By 1939 when Langism had ebbed and all sides realised Labor unity was paramount, Heffron participated in a unity conference and narrowly failed to be elected leader in a caucus ballot. Throughout the relative golden years of McKell’s Premiership Heffron was a Cabinet Minister, first for National Emergency Services‑an important portfolio concerned with mobilising manpower for the war effort‑and then as Minister for Education.
The postwar era continued to frustrate Heffron’s ambitions for leadership, with the caucus electing first James McGirr and then Joe Cahill as Leader. In 1952 Heffron became Deputy Leader of the Parliamentary Party, in which role he was able to prevent much of the damage that Labor’s 1955 split wreaked on the Victorian Branch. As an identified, though non-believing, Catholic and as a senior Labor figure with a solid left-wing unionist past, he was able to bridge many of the gaps dividing groups who might otherwise have come into conflict.
As Minister for Education, Heffron published an important plan, Tomorrow is Theirs: The Present and Future of Education in New South Wales. During his tenure as Minister in the post-WWII, Cold War environment, scientific and technical training were stressed. Primary school enrolments jumped from 330,000 to 570,000, while secondary and technical school enrolments doubled. Legislation from Heffron’s time established the University of Technology, Sydney, the University of Newcastle, and college campuses in Newcastle and Wollongong. University enrolments, which included a generation of ex-servicemen, jumped from 5,000 to 22,000.
In 1959, when Joe Cahill suddenly died, Heffron was elected unopposed as Leader of the Party and as Premier. Amongst other reforms, Heffron’s Government established the Totalisator Agency Board (TAB), which brought into legality the vast black economy of SP bookmaking. In 1964, Heffron resigned in favour of Jack Renshaw, and in 1968, retired as Member for Maroubra. He died on the 27 July 1978 at Kirribilli.