People Australia

Netta Burns, by Heide Smith, 1994

Supplied by Heide Smith, LCB007

Netta Patricia Burns (1924-1996) political adviser and welfare reformer 

Birth: 26 December 1924 at Essendon, Melbourne, Victoria, daughter of native-born parents Thomas Russell Cox (1897-1966), public servant, and Grace Louise, née Whitaker (1903-1989). Marriage: 1946 at Hawthorn, Melbourne, to Arthur Lee Burns (1922-1966), university tutor and Presbyterian minister. They had five children. Death: 30 April 1996 in her home at Canberra. 

• Active in student politics at the University of Melbourne in the 1940s.
• worked for the research department of the British Labour Party during the tenure of the Labour government 1945-1951.
• Returned to Australia and worked for the ALP national secretariat established by Cyril Wyndham.
• In 1970 she joined the staff of Lance Barnard. During the Whitlam government she was a distinguished staffer of Bill Hayden and Joe Berinson. She served on the staff of Don Grimes in the late 1970s and early 1980s.
• Burns was influential in the Australian Labor Party’s social security policy formulation. She was senior adviser to Brian Howe, when he was minister for social security. From 1987 to 1996 she was a member of Social Security Appeals Tribunal.
• “One of life's encouragers . . . the consummate, quintessential networker”.
• Cause of death: cancer. 

Sources
Australian, 6 May 1996; photo and obituary, Sydney Morning Herald, May 1966, p 33.