People Australia

Don MacSween, 1942

National Archives of Australia, A9301, 126916

Donald Roffey (Don) MacSween (1906-1997) clerk, trade union official, political activist and environmentalist

Birth: 7 March 1906 at Woollahra, New South Wales, son of Murdo or Murdoch MacSween (1872-1930), former able seaman in the Royal Navy, later assurance agent, and Florence, née Roffey (1874-1935). Marriage: 1935 at North Sydney to native-born Edna Alice Hurst (1908-2003), born at Balmain, Sydney. They had one daughter. Death: 13 February 1997 in hospital at the Gold Coast, Queensland. Religion: Presbyterian on his service record; buried with Uniting Church forms. 

• Gained High School Intermediate Certificate at night school whilst working during the day. Worked as a clerk.
• Member of the NSW Australian Labor Party Socialisation Units in the early 1930s. With left-wing support, in 1940 almost defeated Victorian ALP executive’s nominee Pat Kennelly for position of ALP assistant secretary. Member of the Central Executive of the ALP in 1931.
• Member of the Federated Clerks’ Union. Federated Clerks’ councillor 1931-1932. Had moved by 1937 to Malvern, Victoria, where he was described as a machinist in the electoral roll that year. At his enlistment he was employed as an inspector by the Hospital Benefits Association of Victoria.
• Served in the Citizen Military Forces from 1921 to 1928. Enlisted in the Royal Australian Air Force on 11 February 1943 and worked as cypher assistant. Served in New Guinea and the Admiralty Islands from May 1943 to August 1944 and from November 1944 to October 1945 and was promoted to corporal. Discharged on 1 March 1946.
• Undertook university courses by correspondence during his war service.
• Organiser of the Victorian branch of the Clothing and Allied Trades’ Union (CATU) from 1946 to 1954?. Delegate to Federal Council of CATU. Delegate to Sydney Labor Council, to Newcastle Labor Council and to Australian Council of Trade Unions conferences.
• Leader of anti-Grouper forces within the union by 1950. Acting secretary of CATU Victorian branch and was then elected secretary in 1954 despite campaign of opposition by Federal secretary David Fraser.
• Contested seat of Isaacs for Labor in May 1954.
• Treasurer of re-vamped anti-Grouper ALP in Victoria in early 1955, urging expulsion of Groupers from party. Narrowly re-elected to secretaryship of Victorian branch in November 1955, despite continued opposition by Fraser.
• Found guilty of electoral maladministration at CATU federal council in 1956 and suspended from office for four years, but remained in office by securing, on advice of anti-Grouper lawyer Lionel Murphy, an injunction restraining council’s decision, with Industrial Court declaring federal intervention null and void on technical grounds. This victory heralded Fraser’s downfall and end of Grouper influence in union.
• Retired from secretaryship of Victorian Branch of CATU in 1969.
• Editor of, Scope, journal of Victorian left-ALP unions in the late 1950s. Honorary editor of the Bulletin of the Economic Information Society.
• Secretary of ALP’s Victorian branch from about 1953 to 1956 at least. Treasurer of ALP Victorian branch 1955. President of State Electoral Council. Secretary of the Metropolitan Council of the Victorian ALP for one term.
• Contested seat of Isaacs in Federal election for Labor in 1954.
• President of ALP Malvern and Tooronga branches. Secretary of ALP Glen Iris branch. Member of Victorian ALP debating team.
• In 1958 visited United Kingdom with his wife. Author of booklet, The Berlin powderkeg:! and other things (1958?).
• Had moved with his wife by 1972 to Miami Beach, Surfers Paradise, Queensland, where a park was dedicated to him in November 1977. An active pioneering environmental worker in Queensland in groups including the Gold Coast Protection League. Kirra Environmental Trust and Surfers Against Nuclear Destruction.
• Cause of death: acute renal failure (1 week), acute pyelonephritis and poor oral intake (1 week), bladder catheterization (3 weeks) and longstanding dementia (more than 8 years).

Sources
Bradon Ellem, In women’s hands? A history of clothing trades unionism in Australia (Sydney, 1989); Labor Year Book, 1933 p 172; News and Views, April 1951 p 2, September 1954 p 4; Sun, 30 November 1955, May 1958; Herald, 28 February 1955, 1 March 1955; papers in National Library of Australia, MS Acc98.193 etc.