People Australia

Robert Pettiona, n.d.

Robert Francis Lindsay Pettiona (1915-1980) rubber worker, trade union official and parliamentarian 

Birth: 7 July 1915 at South Melbourne, Victoria, son of native-born parents John James Pettiona (1892-1971), waterside worker, and Sylvia Gladys, née Conroy (1894-1976). Marriage: 24 April 1940 at South Melbourne to native-born Marguerita Wilde (1916-2004). They had two daughters and one son. Death: 25 November 1980 in Princess Alexandra Hospital at South Brisbane, Queensland. Religion: Agnostic; buried with Catholic rites. 

• Educated at Saints Peter and Paul's primary school, South Melbourne, and Christian Brothers Technical College, South Melbourne.
• Was a rubber worker at Dunlop Tyre Co., Montague, from 1931 to 1951.
• President of the Rubber Workers' Union (Victoria) 1943-1951; member of federal council 1947-1951 and 1958-1963.
• Federal general secretary of the union from 1955 to 1979.
• President and secretary of the Windsor branch of the Australian Labor Party. Elected member of the Victorian Legislative Assembly for seat of Prahran in a bye/election on 16 June 1951. Was defeated on 27 May 1955. Member of the Statute Law Revisions committee 1952-1955. Contested Prahran 1958 and 1964.
• Board member of Victorian School for Deaf Children for fifteen years, Prahran Technical School council for seven years.
• Editor of Rubber, Plastics and Cable Industries Journal for twenty years.
• Cause of death; septicaemia (10 days), peritonitis (10 days), ruptured duodenum (10 days), following surgery for duodenal ulcer (8 days).

Sources
Geoff Browne, Biographical register of the Victorian Parliament, 1900-84 (Melbourne, 1985); Rubber Plastic and Cable Industries Journal, October-December 1959.