Politics
In the 1917 Federal election he unsuccessfully contested the Division of Fremantle for Labor. Simons campaigned with John Curtin until they disagreed after Simons wrote newspaper articles criticising trade unionists, referring to strikers as "Trade Union Trash". In 1921 he won the Seat of East Perth in the state parliament. He resigned his seat on 1 November 1922 and subsequently nominated as a candidate for the resulting by-election on 18 November 1922, but was defeated by the Labor candidate, Thomas Hughes.
He supported Premier James Mitchell's land development and migration programmes and the ill-fated Kendenup community established by Jack De Garis in 1920. Simons Road in the town is named in his honour.
Read more about this topic: Jack Simons
Famous quotes containing the word politics:
“While you’re playing cards with a regular guy or having a bite to eat with him, he seems a peaceable, good-humoured and not entirely dense person. But just begin a conversation with him about something inedible, politics or science, for instance, and he ends up in a deadend or starts in on such an obtuse and base philosophy that you can only wave your hand and leave.”
—Anton Pavlovich Chekhov (1860–1904)
“Beware the politically obsessed. They are often bright and interesting, but they have something missing in their natures; there is a hole, an empty place, and they use politics to fill it up. It leaves them somehow misshapen.”
—Peggy Noonan (b. 1950)
“From the beginning, the placement of [Clarence] Thomas on the high court was seen as a political end justifying almost any means. The full story of his confirmation raises questions not only about who lied and why, but, more important, about what happens when politics becomes total war and the truth—and those who tell it—are merely unfortunate sacrifices on the way to winning.”
—Jane Mayer, U.S. journalist, and Jill Abramson b. 1954, U.S. journalist. Strange Justice, p. 8, Houghton Mifflin (1994)