Sir Thomas Playford GCMG was an Australian politician from the state of South Australia. He served as Premier from 5 November 1938 to 10 March 1965. Though controversial, it was the longest term of any elected government leader in Australian history. His tenure was marked by a period of population and economic growth unmatched by any other Australian state.
About Thomas Playford IV in brief
Sir Thomas Playford GCMG was an Australian politician from the state of South Australia. He served as Premier from 5 November 1938 to 10 March 1965. Though controversial, it was the longest term of any elected government leader in Australian history. His tenure as premier was marked by a period of population and economic growth unmatched by any other Australian state. He was known for his parochial style in pushing South Australia’s interests, and for his shameless haranguing of federal leaders. His string of election wins was enabled by a system of a malapportionment gerrymander that bore his name, the ‘Playmander’ Playford came under heavy scrutiny for his hesitation to grant a clemency to murderer Stuart Stuart in the 1950s. Although he was eventually commuted amid claims of judicial wrongdoing, Playford was seen as seeing heavy criticism of the judicial review process as a result of his decision. He is buried in the South Australian War Memorial in Adelaide. His grandfather, Thomas playford II, had served as premier in the 19th century. His father was a farmer before serving in the Australian Imperial Force in World War I. Playford served as a Liberal and Country League representative for Murray at the 1933 state election. He became premier in 1938, having been made a minister just months earlier in an attempt to dampen his insubordination. He turned his back on laissez faire economics and used his negotiating skills to encourage industry to relocate to South Australia during World War II, as the state was far from the battlefield.
Although a liberal conservative, his approach to economics was pragmatic, and he was derided by his colleagues for his “socialism” as he nationalised electricity companies and used state enterprises to drive economic growth. His policies allowed for the supply of cheap electricity to factories, minimal business taxes, and low wages to make the state more attractive to industrial investment. He kept salaries low by building vast amounts of public housing and using government price controls to keep housing and other costs of living low to attract workers and migrants, angering the landlord class. In the 1940s, these policies were seen as dangerous to Playford’s control of his party, but they proved successful and he cemented his position within the LCL. The main obstructions to his initiatives came from the upper house, where the restriction of suffrage to landowners resulted in a chamber dominated by the conservative landed gentry. His party’s share of the vote declined continually despite the economic growth, and they clung to power mainly due to the Playmander. The party’s failure to adapt to changing social mores, remaining adamantly committed to restrictive laws on alcohol, gambling and gambling, and public healthcare, was the turning point in Playford’s tenure. He died in 1965, and was buried in a private funeral in the Adelaide suburb of Norton Summit, near where he had been a farmer for most of his life. His son, Michael Playford, was also a politician.
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