Vernon Samuel Charles Jones (1908-2002), Harold William Young (detail), 1983, Historic Memorials Collection, Parliament House Art Collection. View full image
President, 18 August 1981 to 4 February 1983
Liberal Party of Australia
Harold Young (1923-2006) became President of the Senate in 1981 at a turbulent time when the government had lost its majority in the chamber. Although he only served as President for 20 months, Young was well-regarded on all sides of politics for his even-handedness and geniality, yet firmness, in a sometimes unruly Senate.1
Young was born at Port Broughton, SA, to Frederick James and Edith Mabel, who farmed land on the Yorke Peninsula. After attending Prince Alfred College in Adelaide on a government scholarship, Young worked on the family property Glenayr, before enlisting in the Volunteer Defence Corps during World War II. At the end of the war, he returned to farming, taking over Glenayr in 1953 and establishing himself as a pastoralist and wheat farmer.
It was through farming that Young became politically active. Convinced that wheat agents and merchants were exploiting farmers, he served on the executives of several primary producer organisations in SA, including the Wheat and Woolgrowers’ Association (1959-65).
Elected to Parliament in 1967 as a Liberal Party senator, Young continued to champion rural issues, particularly through committee work.2 In 1970, he became an inaugural member of the Standing Committee on Primary and Secondary Industry and Trade (renamed Industry and Trade in 1972). He was also a member of the Select Committee on Off-shore Petroleum Resources, becoming its chair in April 1971.
Young served as Government Whip from August 1971 and, after the change of government in December 1972, as Opposition Whip, until March 1975 when he was appointed shadow minister for the media. He later described the work of the whip as the ‘link’ between the ministry and the back bench, and at times that of a ‘peacemaker’.3
Elected President in August 1981, Young made notable rulings about the responsibility of ministers to provide information to the Senate, and voting on financial legislation.4 During his tenure, no senator ever moved a motion of dissent against his rulings, a testament to his steadying influence on the Senate.5 He appointed the first female Senate attendant in 1983, saying that it was time women overturned this traditionally male stronghold.6
A staunch defender of the Senate process, Young was knighted for service to the Parliament. In retirement, he was active in the Association of Former Members of the Parliament of Australia, serving as vice-president (1988-93) and as president (1993-95).7 He died in Adelaide on 21 November 2006, survived by his wife Margaret, whom he had married in 1952, and their four children.
Vernon Samuel Charles Jones
Melbourne-born painter, sculptor and commercial artist Vernon Jones (1908-2002) studied art at the Melbourne Institute of Technology and the National Gallery of Victoria Art School. During the 1920s and 1930s he worked as an engraver and commercial artist, his images appearing in Smith’s Weekly, the Melbourne Herald and the Brisbane Courier. Jones served in the RAAF in World War II. Following the war, Jones became art editor for the Australasian Post and freelanced as a professional painter. He was a seven-times finalist in the Archibald Prize (1944, 1949, 1951, 1953, 1955, 1957, 1960), painting portraits of many notable Australians. He completed dioramas and major paintings of wartime events, which are held in the Australian War Memorial collection. He was an active member of the Melbourne Savage group of artists, president and chairman of the Prahran Historical and Art Society from 1973 to 1975, and member of the Australian Guild of Realist Artists, the Victorian Artists’ Society and the National Gallery Art Society. He held several solo shows, and the Shrine of Remembrance, Melbourne, held a posthumous exhibition of his wartime art in 2005-06.8
Harold William Young
by Vernon Samuel Charles Jones
1983
Oil on canvas
105.2 x 90 cm
Historic Memorials Collection, Parliament House Art Collection
References
1. Unless otherwise noted, information sourced from JM Brown, ‘Young, Sir Harold William (1923–2006)’, The Biographical Dictionary of the Australian Senate Online Edition, Department of the Senate, Parliament of Australia, published first in hardcopy 2010; Parliamentary Library, ‘Young, the Hon. Sir Harold William. KCMG’, Parliamentary Handbook Online. Websites accessed 8 June 2021.
2. P Calvert, ‘Adjournment—Sir Harold William Young’, Senate, Debates, 27 November 2006, pp. 129–30.
3. H Young, interview by Ken Taylor, 8–9 December 1987, ‘Transcript’, Parliament’s Oral History Project, National Library of Australia, Canberra, p. 124, accessed 12 August 2021.
4. H Young, ‘Questions without notice’, Senate, Debates, 12 November 1981, p. 2081; H Young, ‘Sales Tax Amendment Bills (Nos 1A to 9A) 1981’, Senate, Debates, 20 October 1981, p. 1412.
5. Calvert, op. cit.; N Minchin, ‘Condolences’, Senate, Debates, 27 November 2006, p. 43–44, accessed 8 August 2021; R Boswell, ‘Condolences’, ibid., pp. 45–46.
6. C Evans, ‘Condolences’, ibid., pp. 44–45.
7. Boswell, op. cit.
8. ‘Jones, Vernon Samuel Charles’, WJ Draper, ed, Who’s Who in Australia, 23rd Edition, The Herald and Weekly Times Ltd, Melbourne, 1980, p. 467; New weekly magazine on Thursday’, The Argus, 6 April 1946, p. 2, accessed 25 June 2021.