Editing Archie Cameron

{{Short description|Australian politician}}
{{Use Australian English|date=August 2021}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=August 2021}}
{{Infobox officeholder
| honorific-prefix = [[The Honourable]] 
| name = Archie Cameron
| honorific-suffix = 
| image = archiecameron.jpg
| caption = Cameron as Speaker of the House
| office       = 12th [[Speaker of the Australian House of Representatives]]
| predecessor  = [[Sol Rosevear]]
| successor    = [[John McLeay, Sr.|Sir John McLeay]]
| term_start   = 22 February 1950
| term_end     = 9 August 1956

|office1          = [[National Party of Australia|Leader of the Country Party]]
|deputy1          = [[Harold Thorby]]<br />[[Arthur Fadden]]
|term_start1      = 13 September 1939
|term_end1        = 16 October 1940
|predecessor1     = [[Earle Page]]
|successor1       = [[Arthur Fadden]]

|office3          = [[Minister for Defence (Australia)|Minister for Navy]]
|primeminister3   = [[Robert Menzies]]
|term_start3      = 14 March 1940
|term_end3        = 28 October 1940
|predecessor3     = [[Frederick Stewart (Australian politician)|Frederick Stewart]]
|successor3       = [[Billy Hughes]]

|office2            = [[Minister for Agriculture (Australia)|Minister for Commerce]]
|term_start2        = 14 March 1940
|term_end2          = 28 October 1940
|primeminister2     = [[Robert Menzies]]
|predecessor2       = [[Earle Page|Sir Earle Page]]
|successor2        = [[George McLeay]]

|office4              = [[Minister for Communications (Australia)|Postmaster-General]] 
|term_start4          = 7 November 1938
|term_end4            = 26 April 1939
|primeminister4       = [[Joseph Lyons]]<br />[[Earle Page]]
|predecessor4         = [[Alexander McLachlan (politician)|Alexander McLachlan]]
|successor4           = [[Eric Harrison]]

| constituency_MP5 = [[Division of Barker|Barker]]
| parliament5 = Australian
| predecessor5 = [[Malcolm Cameron (Australian politician)|Malcolm Cameron]]
| successor5 = [[Jim Forbes (Australian politician)|Jim Forbes]]
| term_start5 = 15 September 1934
| term_end5 = 9 August 1956

| office6 = [[Country Party (South Australia)|Leader of the South Australian<br>Country Party]]
| predecessor6 = [[Malcolm McIntosh (politician)|Malcolm McIntosh]]
| successor6 = [[Liberal and Country League|''party abolished'']]
| term_start6 = 1928
| term_end6 = 9 June 1932

| constituency_MP7 = [[Electoral district of Wooroora|Wooroora]]
| parliament7 = South Australian
| predecessor7 = [[Allan Robertson (politician)|Allan Robertson]]
| successor7 = [[Albert Robinson (Australian politician)|Albert Robertson]]
| term_start7 = 26 March 1927
| term_end7 = 7 August 1934

| birth_date = {{birth date|df=yes|1895|3|22}}
| birth_place = [[Happy Valley, South Australia]],  Australia
| death_date = {{death date and age|df=yes|1956|8|9|1895|3|22}} 
| death_place = [[Sydney]], [[New South Wales]], Australia
| spouse = {{marriage|Margaret Walsh|1925}}
| party = [[National Party of Australia|Country]] (federal, 1927–40) <br />[[Country Party (South Australia)|Country]] (state, until 1932)<br />[[Liberal and Country League|LCL]] (state, 1932–1934)<br />[[United Australia Party|UAP]] (1940–44) <br />[[Liberal Party of Australia|Liberal]] (1944–56) 
| relations = 
| children =
| residence =
| alma_mater = 
| occupation = Farmer
| profession =
| signature =
| website = 
| footnotes =
}}
'''Archie Galbraith Cameron''' (22 March 1895{{spaced ndash}}9 August 1956) was an Australian politician. He was a government minister under [[Joseph Lyons]] and [[Robert Menzies]], leader of the [[National Party of Australia|Country Party]] from 1939 to 1940, and finally [[Speaker of the Australian House of Representatives|Speaker of the House of Representatives]] from 1950 until his death.

Cameron was born in [[Happy Valley, South Australia]]. After serving in World War I, he took up a farm near [[Loxton, South Australia|Loxton]] as a [[Soldier settlement (Australia)|soldier settler]]. He was elected to the [[South Australian House of Assembly]] in 1927, and to the House of Representatives at the [[1934 Australian federal election|1934 federal election]]. Cameron was [[Postmaster-General of Australia|Postmaster-General]] in the [[Lyons government]] from 1938 to 1939. He replaced [[Earle Page]] as leader of the Country Party in September 1939, and in March 1940 led the party back into [[Coalition (Australia)|coalition]] with the [[United Australia Party]] (UAP), which Page had broken off. Cameron was ''de facto'' [[Deputy Prime Minister of Australia|deputy prime minister]] under Menzies, as well as [[Minister for Agriculture (Australia)|Minister for Commerce]] and [[Minister for Defence (Australia)|Minister for the Navy]]. However, he was deposed as Country Party leader in October 1940, subsequently defecting to the UAP (and later joining the new [[Liberal Party of Australia|Liberal Party]]). Cameron's last appointment was as Speaker, where he was highly respected. He was known throughout his political career for his eccentric manner and strong personality.

==Early life==
Cameron was born in [[Happy Valley, South Australia]], the son of Mary Ann (née McDonald) and John Cameron.  His parents were both immigrants from Scotland. He was educated at state schools and worked on his father's farm at Happy Valley until 1916, when he joined the [[First Australian Imperial Force]] and fought on the [[Western Front (World War I)|Western Front]].  He was gassed while in the front, suffering severe damage to his heart and lungs.  After World War I Cameron took up farming near Loxton as part of a [[Soldier settlement (Australia)|soldier settlement]] scheme, and became active in the newly formed [[Country Party (South Australia)|Country Party]].<ref name=adb>{{Australian Dictionary of Biography
|last=Playford 
|first=John 
|year=1993
|id=A130387b
|title= Cameron, Archie Galbraith (1895–1956)  
|access-date=18 November 2007 }}</ref>

==State politics==
An early member of the [[Country Party (South Australia)|Country Party]], Cameron unsuccessfully stood for the [[South Australian House of Assembly]] seat of [[Electoral district of Wooroora|Wooroora]] at the [[1924 South Australian state election|1924 state election]].<ref name=adb2>{{cite news|url=https://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/cameron-archie-galbraith-9669|first=Stephen|last=Wilks|year=2021|work=Biographical Dictionary of the House of Representatives|title=Archie Galbraith Cameron (1895–1956)}}</ref> He reprised his candidacy in Wooroora at the [[1927 South Australian state election|1927 state election]] and was elected.<ref name="SA parl">{{Cite SA-parl|pid=3692|name=Hon Archie Galbraith Cameron|former=yes|access-date=12 November 2022}}</ref>

Cameron was elected state leader of the Country Party in 1928. Prior to the [[1931 Australian federal election|1931 federal election]] he was involved in the formation of the [[Emergency Committee of South Australia]] as a united anti-[[Australian Labor Party|Labor]] party. In 1932 he led his party into a merger with the [[Liberal Federation]] to form the [[Liberal and Country League]]. The Country Party's terms were stiff; among them, Cameron sought to transfer to federal politics, and wanted a safe seat in which to run at the next election. Accordingly, Cameron resigned from state parliament in 1934 in order to run in that year's federal election.<ref name=adb2/>

==Federal politics==
===Early years===
Cameron was elected to the [[Australian House of Representatives|House of Representatives]] at the [[1934 Australian federal election|1934 federal election]], standing as the LCL candidate in the seat of [[Division of Barker|Barker]]. He joined the parliamentary Country Party upon his election, in accordance with LCL rules which allowed their federal MPs to choose to sit with either the Country Party or the [[United Australia Party]] (UAP).<ref name=adb/> Shortly after taking his seat he moved a motion to expel [[Lang Labor]] MP [[Jock Garden]] from parliament for his former Communist affiliation, which caused a "near-riot".<ref>{{cite news|url=https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/273647978|title=Mr. Speaker|newspaper=Daily Mirror|location=Sydney|date=28 February 1950}}</ref>

Cameron did not have long to wait for ministerial preferment; in 1937 he was appointed an assistant minister in the government of [[Joseph Lyons]]. In November 1937, Cameron stood for the deputy leadership of the Country Party following the retirement of [[Thomas Paterson]]; he did not win enough votes to make the second ballot.<ref>{{cite news|url=https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/104184300|title=Mr. Thorby, Deputy Leader|newspaper=[[The Land (newspaper)|The Land]]|date=3 December 1937}}</ref>  He briefly served as acting minister for commerce in 1938, and during that time became the first minister to be "named" by the Speaker.  Later that year, he became [[Postmaster-General of Australia|Postmaster-General]].  He temporarily suspended radio [[2KY]]'s licence because he objected to political views expressed on it (2KY was the property of the ALP's New South Wales branch).<ref name=adb/>

===Leader of the Country Party===
[[File:Archie Cameron 1940.jpg|thumb|left|upright|Cameron as Country Party leader]]
Cameron was [[1939 Country Party of Australia leadership election|elected leader]] of the Country Party on 13 September 1939, following the resignation of Earle Page. He defeated [[John McEwen]] by seven votes to five, with two abstentions. According to McEwen, the result was skewed by the absence of four MPs who had refused to sit with the Country Party with Page as leader – a motion to re-admit them was defeated by seven votes to six. McEwen claimed in his memoirs that the dissident MPs were "all strong supporters of mine and, had they been allowed to vote, I would have won the election". They were all re-admitted to the party a few months later.<ref>{{cite book|url=https://www.page.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/John_McEwen_His_Story_-_John_McEwen.pdf|author=John McEwen|author-link=John McEwen|title=John McEwen: His Story|publisher=Page Research Centre|year=1982}}</ref>

In March 1940, Cameron took the Country Party back into the coalition government under Menzies, becoming the ''de facto'' [[Deputy Prime Minister of Australia|deputy prime minister]] as well as [[Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry (Australia)|Minister for Commerce]] and [[Minister for Defence (Australia)|Minister for the Navy]]. The Country Party lost three seats to Labor [[1940 Australian federal election|1940 election]], costing the Coalition its majority. Country Party MPs tired of Cameron's domineering style, and removed him as leader.  [[Arthur Fadden]] was chosen as interim leader and after Page and McEwen deadlocked on three ballots. Cameron then immediately resigned from the ministry, and from the Country Party: he joined Menzies's party, the [[United Australia Party]]. He rejoined the Army and spent the rest of the war on active service in the Directorate of Military Intelligence at Army Headquarters, Melbourne, where he did useful work on the Japanese order of battle.<ref name=adb/>  While he was in the service, he faced what would be his only really close electoral contest.  At the [[1943 Australian federal election|1943 election]], trade unionist [[Harry Krantz]] slashed Cameron's majority from a comfortably safe 15.9 percent to an extremely marginal 1.7 percent.  Cameron was left as the only non-Labor MP from South Australia, and the only non-Labor member outside the eastern states (the member for [[Division of Northern Territory|Northern Territory]],  [[Adair Blain]], was an independent, but did not have full voting rights).

During World War II, Cameron was a strong supporter of mass internment of enemy aliens. In November 1940, shortly after his resignation from the ministry, the [[Australian War Cabinet]] decided to allow interned aliens the right to appeal their internment to a tribunal. While remaining a government backbencher, Cameron unsuccessfully moved for the disallowance of the relevant regulation by the House of Representatives and in April 1941 moved a [[no-confidence motion]] in the army minister [[Percy Spender]] for his handling of internment.<ref>{{cite book|url=https://italianprisonersofwar.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/behind-the-barbed-wire.pdf|title=Behind Barbed Wire: Internment in Australia During World War II|first=Margaret|last=Bevege|publisher=University of Queensland Press|year=1993|isbn=0702224928|page=110}}</ref> Cameron argued that enemy aliens "enjoy no rights whatever" during war-time and were a "danger to the nation" unless proven otherwise, with the appeals tribunals placing the government "in the hopelessly ridiculous position of appearing before a tribunal to defend its own actions".{{sfn|Bevege|1993|pp=110-111}} His motion was not put to a vote as no other MP was willing to second it, but in response Spender defended his actions and stated Cameron's intent was to "indulge his peculiar megalomania in order to get some notoriety out of his action".{{sfn|Bevege|1993|pp=111-112}}

===Speaker of the House of Representatives===
Cameron followed most of the UAP into Menzies's new party, the [[Liberal Party of Australia|Liberal Party]], and when the Liberals won the [[1949 Australian federal election|1949 elections]] Menzies appointed him [[Speaker of the Australian House of Representatives|Speaker of the House]]: mainly, it was said, to keep him out of the Cabinet. He presided over the House with an autocratic style that caused a number of celebrated rows with members on both sides.  Cameron's health never recovered from his World War I gassing, and in August 1955 he contracted influenza.  Despite this, he fought [[1955 Australian federal election|that year's election]] and was handily reelected.  He died of a [[myocardial infarction|heart attack]] in August in [[Royal Prince Alfred Hospital]], Sydney.<ref name =adb/>

==Personal life==
Cameron married Margaret Eileen Walsh on 15 April 1925. They had a son and a daughter together; his daughter predeceased him.<ref name=adb/>

Cameron was raised [[Presbyterianism|Presbyterian]], but later converted to [[Catholicism]], which was his wife's religion.<ref name=adb/> The ''[[Sydney Morning Herald]]'' reported in 1950 that he was a "deeply religious man". In parliament, he attracted attention for choosing to make an [[affirmation (law)|affirmation]] rather than swear the oath of office. He did so each time he was elected and was the only member of the House of Representatives to do so during his time in office; after his death no other MPs chose to make an affirmation until 1969. He told an interviewer that "if a man's word is worthless no amount of oath-taking will make him worthy".<ref>{{cite news|url=https://www.aph.gov.au/about_parliament/parliamentary_departments/parliamentary_library/pubs/rp/rp1314/oathsaffirmations|title=Oaths and affirmations made by the executive and members of federal parliament since 1901|first=Deirdre|last=McKeown|date=24 October 2013|access-date=23 August 2024|publisher=Parliamentary Library|work=Research Papers 2013-14}}</ref>

==References==
{{Reflist}}

{{s-start}}
{{s-off}}
{{s-bef | before=[[Alexander McLachlan (politician)|Alexander McLachlan]] }}
{{s-ttl | title=[[Minister for Communications (Australia)|Postmaster-General]] | years=1938–1939 }}
{{s-aft | after=[[Eric Harrison]] }}
{{s-bef | before=[[George McLeay]] }}
{{s-ttl  | title=[[Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry (Australia)|Minister for Commerce]] | years=1940 }}
{{s-aft | after=[[Earle Page]] }}
{{s-bef | before=[[Frederick Stewart (Australian politician)|Frederick Stewart]] }}
{{s-ttl  | title=[[Minister for Defence (Australia)|Minister for the Navy]] | years=1940 }}
{{s-aft | after=[[Billy Hughes]] }}
{{s-par|au}}
{{s-bef | before=[[Sol Rosevear]] }}
{{s-ttl | title=[[Speaker of the Australian House of Representatives]] | years=1949–1956}}
{{s-aft | after=[[John McLeay, senior|Sir John McLeay]] }}
{{s-bef | before=[[Malcolm Cameron (Australian politician)|Malcolm Cameron]] }}
{{s-ttl | title=Member for [[Division of Barker|Barker]] | years=1934–1956}}
{{s-aft | after=[[Jim Forbes (Australian politician)|Jim Forbes]] }}
{{s-ppo}}
{{s-bef | before=[[Earle Page]] }}
{{s-ttl | title=Leader of the [[National Party of Australia|Country Party]] | years=1939–1940}}
{{s-aft | after=[[Arthur Fadden]] }}
{{s-end}}

{{Leaders of the National Party of Australia}}
{{Speaker of the Australian House of Representatives}}
{{National Party of Australia}}

{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Cameron, Archie Galbraith}}
[[Category:1895 births]]
[[Category:1956 deaths]]
[[Category:Australian monarchists]]
[[Category:Members of the South Australian House of Assembly]]
[[Category:Liberal Party of Australia members of the Parliament of Australia]]
[[Category:National Party of Australia members of the Parliament of Australia]]
[[Category:United Australia Party members of the Parliament of Australia]]
[[Category:Members of the Cabinet of Australia]]
[[Category:Members of the Australian House of Representatives for Barker]]
[[Category:Members of the Australian House of Representatives]]
[[Category:Speakers of the Australian House of Representatives]]
[[Category:Liberal and Country League politicians]]
[[Category:Australian people of Scottish descent]]
[[Category:Leaders of the National Party of Australia]]
[[Category:Australian Roman Catholics]]
[[Category:Converts from Presbyterianism]]
[[Category:Converts to Roman Catholicism from Presbyterianism]]
[[Category:Postmasters-general of Australia]]
[[Category:Australian MPs 1934–1937]]
[[Category:Australian MPs 1937–1940]]
[[Category:Australian MPs 1940–1943]]
[[Category:Australian MPs 1943–1946]]
[[Category:Australian MPs 1946–1949]]
[[Category:Australian MPs 1949–1951]]
[[Category:Australian MPs 1951–1954]]
[[Category:Australian MPs 1954–1955]]
[[Category:Australian MPs 1955–1958]]