People Australia

Charles Jones, 1973

Charles Keith (Charlie or Keith) Jones (1917-2003) boilermaker, trade union official and parliamentarian

Birth: 12 September 1917, at Newcastle, New South Wales, son of native-born parents Charles Maggs Samuel Jones (1884-1965), mechanics assistant and railwayman, and Heather Adelaide, née Nunn (1894-1971). Marriage: 1939 at Wickham, Newcastle, to Dulcie Doreen Wright (1916-2010). They had one son and one daughter. Death: 7 August 2003 at Newcastle, NSW. Religion: Anglican. 

• Educated at Tighes Hill Public and Cooks Hill High schools. Keith, as his family always called him, left school after three years secondary education. Was an apprenticed boilermaker, at Broken Hill Pty Ltd.
• Boilermaker at Newcastle state dockyard from 1943. Executive Officer of the Boilermakers’ union for fourteen years. Official of Metal Trades Federation and Newcastle Trades Hall Council. Member of Local Government Executive.
• Alderman on Newcastle City Council from 1947 to 1959; deputy lord mayor 1953; lord mayor 1956-1957. Chairman of numerous Council committees. Member of Shortland County Council 1957-1959.
• Joined Australian Labour Party, Newcastle branch, in 1942. Secretary of Tighe's Hill branch of ALP; secretary of Newcastle Federal Electorate Council; president of Newcastle State Electoral Council.
• Elected member of the House of Representatives for Newcastle in 1958. Member of Parliamentary Labor Party executive from 1967 to 1972; member of printing committee and aircraft noise committee; member of House Committee and Parliamentary Select Committee on Road Safety; Federal Parliamentary Labor Party shadow Minister for Transport from 1966; deputy chairman of committee for six years.
• Minister in the Whitlam government, for transport from 19 December 1972 to 11 November 1975 and for civil aviation from 19 December 1972 to 30 November 1973. Retired from parliament in 1983.
• Delegate to United Nations 1967. Life member, ALP NSW branch, in 1983; nominated by Allan Morris MP, who succeeded him as member for Newcastle. Appointed Officer of the Order of Australia in January 1984.
• Older brother of Samuel Barry Jones (1923-1999), fitter and member of the Legislative Assembly (NSW) for seat of Waratah from May 1965 to March 1984.

Sources
Joan, Rydon (ed), A biographical register of the Commonwealth Parliament 1901-1972 (ANU Press, 1975); Labor Year Book 1973; Sydney Morning Herald, 23 August 2003.