Frank Walsh - Parliament

Parliament

Walsh first stood for the Australian Labor Party in the safe conservative electorate of Mitcham at the 1938 state election and while losing to the Liberal and Country League (LCL) member, impressed senior ALP figures sufficiently to gain endorsement for the safe Labor seat of Goodwood (renamed Edwardstown in 1956). Walsh duly entered parliament in 1941 and was elected as Deputy Opposition Leader of the state parliamentary Labor Party in 1949, when it became clear no one else wanted the job. Labor had by then been in opposition in South Australia since 1933. The LCL, led by Sir Thomas Playford, ruled South Australia through a time of strong economic development and held power thanks to an electoral malappointment known as the Playmander. In response, many South Australian Labor politicians despaired of ever being in government, and believed the Deputy Opposition Leader's role to be a thankless, poor-paying job.

Following the split in the Labor Party in 1955, Walsh, along with Opposition leader Mick O'Halloran, resisted numerous overtures to join the heavily Catholic Democratic Labor Party (DLP). Their opposition ensured that the DLP did not attain the same influence in South Australian politics that it did in Victoria and Queensland.

Following the sudden death of O'Halloran in 1960, Walsh was narrowly elected to the Labor leadership ahead of Don Dunstan and followed O'Halloran's lead of preferring co-operation with the LCL to criticising them and maintained friendly relations with Playford, who treated him in a somewhat avuncular manner.

Walsh's first election as leader happened in 1962. Labor won decisively on the two-party vote, taking 54 percent of the vote. However, due to the Playmander, Labor won 19 seats, two short of a majority. The balance of power rested with two independents, who threw their support to Playford a week after the election. Walsh lobbied Governor Edric Bastyan to appoint him Premier instead, arguing that he had won a clear majority of the popular vote. It was to no avail. Nonetheless, the election showed just how distorted the Playmander had become. Even though Adelaide accounted for two-thirds of the state's population, a vote in Adelaide was effectively worth only half a rural vote.