Don Chipp

The Honourable Don Chipp AO
Member of the Australian Parliament for Higinbotham
In office 10 December 1960 – 25 October 1969
Preceded by	Frank Timson
Succeeded by	Division abolished
Member of the Australian Parliament for Hotham
In office 25 October 1969 – 10 November 1977
Preceded by	New seat
Succeeded by	Roger Johnston
Senator for Victoria
In office 1 July 1978 – 18 August 1986
Personal details
Born	21 August 1925(1925-08-21) Melbourne, Victoria
Died	28 August 2006(2006-08-28) (aged 81) Richmond, Victoria
Nationality	Australian
Political party	Liberal (1960–77) Democrats (1977–2006)
Occupation	Management consultant

Donald Leslie Chipp, AO (21 August 1925 – 28 August 2006) was an Australian politician, and the inaugural leader of the Australian Democrats.

Early life

Donald Leslie Chipp was born in Melbourne and educated at Northcote High School and Melbourne University, where he graduated in commerce. After playing Australian rules football for Heidelberg in the Victorian Football Association, he played briefly in the (higher-grade) Victorian Football League with the Fitzroy Football Club (playing three games in 1947, for one goal). He also played for Prahran in the VFA and was a member of their 1951 Premiership side. He was also a finalist in the important Stawell Gift annual foot race.

After serving in the Royal Australian Air Force in World War II, Chipp worked as registrar of the Commonwealth Institute of Accountants from 1950 to 1955. In 1955 he was appointed chief executive officer of the Olympic Civic Committee, which was involved in organising the 1956 Olympic Games in Melbourne. After the Games he worked as manager of the Victorian Promotion Committee, and also ran his own management consultancy. From 1958 to 1961 he was a member of the Kew City Council.

Political career

Chipp entered federal politics in 1960 as the Liberal member for Higinbotham in Melbourne's southern bayside suburbs. After a redistribution in 1968 he transferred to the less safe seat of Hotham. He was given the Navy and Tourism portfolios by Prime Minister Harold Holt in 1967. After Holt's sudden death in December 1967, Chipp retained those portfolios in the brief interim government of Country Party leader John McEwen, but he was dropped from the ministry by the new Liberal Prime Minister, John Gorton. This was partly because Chipp had supported another candidate, Billy Snedden, in the Liberal leadership ballot, and partly because Gorton disapproved of Chipp's decision to hold a second Royal Commission into the 1964 Voyager disaster – a decision which Gorton felt reflected badly on the Royal Australian Navy.^[1]

After the 1969 election, Gorton appointed Chipp as Minister for Customs and Excise. In this portfolio he gained national attention by largely abolishing the censorship of printed material, unbanning many novels, including Henry Miller's Tropic of Cancer, as well as allowing the sale of Playboy magazine. He also oversaw the introduction of the R certificate for films in 1970, which allowed previously banned films to be rerated and shown to adults. These actions made him popular but also placed him at odds with many of his fellow party members, who considered such decisions too liberal. During this period, Chipp became identified as part of a "small-l liberal" faction of the Liberal Party, along with Snedden and Andrew Peacock.

Following the Liberal Party's defeat at the 1972 federal election by the Labor Party's Gough Whitlam, Chipp served as Shadow Minister for Social Security. He was a strong supporter of Snedden, who had become party leader following the 1972 defeat but lost the 1974 election against Whitlam. When Malcolm Fraser displaced Snedden as leader in March 1975, Chipp retained his position but it was no secret that the two men did not get on. When Fraser was appointed Prime Minister following the dismissal of Gough Whitlam on 11 November 1975, he gave Chipp three portfolios in his caretaker ministry—Social Security, Health, and Repatriation and Compensation. However, when Fraser won the December 1975 election, Chipp was not included in the ministry.

Resignation from the Liberal Party

In his book The Third Man, Chipp considered the effects of a "whispering campaign" to discredit him within the Liberal Party. This came to a head when he spoke at a heavily attended Citizens for Democracy meeting at the Sydney Town Hall with other controversial speakers including Frank Hardy, Patrick White and Faith Bandler. He writes "Liberals thought it was intolerable that any member of the party should appear with 'those people'".^[2] The rebellious image was heightened by the fact that Chipp omitted to attend a Parliament House reception for Queen Elizabeth II, having decided to honour his prior speaking engagement which had been widely publicised. Chipp concluded: "It was then, I believe, that I concluded I could not stay in such a party any longer. I resented the tag of 'rebel' which was being applied to me by my own colleagues."

Chipp decided to resign from the Liberal Party on 24 March 1977 and concluded his speech that day with the following:

I have become disenchanted with party politics as they are practised in this country and with the pressure groups which have an undue influence on the major political parties. The parties seem to polarise on almost every issue, sometimes seemingly just for the sake of it, and I wonder if the ordinary voter is not becoming sick and tired of the vested interests which unduly influence political parties and yearns for the emergence of a third political force, representing middle-of-the-road policies which would owe allegiance to no outside pressure group. Perhaps it may be the right time to test that proposition.^[3]

Leadership of the Democrats

Janine Haines and Chipp in 1977

Even before the resignation, he received an invitation to join an amalgamated centre-line party which predated the Australian Democrats.^[4] He resolutely turned down a series of such leadership offers until, on 9 May 1977, he was accorded an overwhelming standing ovation by a 3,000-strong audience at the Melbourne Town Hall and concluded ". . . I was committed. . . and it was a good feeling".

At the December 1977 election he was elected to the Australian Senate, with one colleague (Colin Mason of New South Wales). As Democrats leader, Chipp was involved in various high-profile environmental and social-justice causes, including playing an important role in stopping the Franklin Dam Project.

At the 1980 election, the Democrats gained three more senators, giving them a total of five—a potential balance of power which they retained until 1 July 2005, after a total lack of success at the 2004 election. Their theoretical ability to reject or amend government legislation was seldom applied, being dependent on rarely-forthcoming support from other non-government senators. It was, however, a useful avenue for publicity and effective Senate committee dealings outside the chamber.

Post-political life

Chipp retired from the Senate, on 18 August 1986, being succeeded as leader by Janine Haines and replaced as a senator by Janet Powell. He ran unsuccessfully for election as the Lord Mayor of Melbourne in 2001. In his later years, he suffered from Parkinson's Disease, although he still made a number of public appearances, most notably on the ABC chat show Enough Rope with Andrew Denton. He also gave an opening address to the Democrats' national conference in Melbourne in May 2006.

Chipp died of pneumonia in August 2006 at Epworth Hospital in the Melbourne suburb of Richmond. A state funeral service was held on 2 September 2006 for him. Australian flags were flown at half-mast all day in Victoria and the Australian Capital Territory to mourn and honour him.

References

1. ^ Alan Reid, The Gorton Experiment, 36–37
2. ^ Chipp D and Larkin J Don Chipp: The Third Man, Rigby 1978, ISBN 0-7270-0827-7, p 185
3. ^ As cited in The Third Man, pp 179–80
4. ^ The invitation came from John Siddons, Robin Millhouse and other executives of the Australia Party and the New Liberal Movement, as described in The Third Man, p 179

External links

• Australian Parliament: Parliamentary biography CHIPP, the Hon. Donald Leslie, AO
• Australian Parliament: Speeches of Senator the Hon. Don Chipp
• Interview with Andrew Denton on the ABC's Enough Rope
• Interview with Peter Thompson on the ABC's Talking Heads

Political offices
Preceded by Fred Chaney	Minister for the Navy 1966–1968	Succeeded by Bert Kelly
New title	Minister in charge of Tourist Activities 1966–1968	Succeeded by Reg Wright
Preceded by Malcolm Scott	Minister for Customs and Excise 1969–1972	Succeeded by Gough Whitlam
Preceded by John Wheeldon	Minister for Social Security 1975	Succeeded by Margaret Guilfoyle
	Minister for Repatriation and Compensation 1975	Succeeded by Kevin Newman
Preceded by Doug Everingham	Minister for Health 1975	Succeeded by Ralph Hunt
Parliament of Australia
Preceded by Frank Timson	Member for Higinbotham 1960–1969	Division abolished
New division	Member for Hotham 1969–1977	Succeeded by Roger Johnston
Preceded by No party precursor	Senator for Victoria 1978–1986	Succeeded by Janet Powell
Party political offices
New political party	Leader of the Australian Democrats 1977–1986	Succeeded by Janine Haines

Persondata
Name	Chipp, Don
Alternative names
Short description
Date of birth	21 August 1925
Place of birth	Melbourne, Victoria
Date of death	28 August 2006
Place of death	Richmond, Victoria