Tom Hayes (Australian politician)

Tom Hayes
Minister-in-Charge of Housing and Materials
In office
17 December 1952 – 31 March 1955
PremierJohn Cain
Preceded byIvan Swinburne
Succeeded byJohn Sheehan
Member of the Victorian Legislative Assembly
for Melbourne
In office
26 June 1924 – 22 April 1955
Preceded byAlexander Rogers
Succeeded byArthur Clarey
Personal details
Born(1890-02-22)22 February 1890
Ararat, Victoria
Died19 February 1967(1967-02-19) (aged 76)
Warrandyte, Victoria, Australia
Resting placeCoburg Cemetery
Political partyLabor Party
Other political
affiliations		Australian Labor Party (Anti-Communist)
Democratic Labor Party
Spouse
Margaret Ann Lynch
​
(m. 1915)​
OccupationRailway worker

Thomas Hayes (22 February 1890 – 19 February 1967) was an Australian politician. He was the Labor Party member for Melbourne in the Victorian Legislative Assembly from 1924 to 1955.

Hayes was born in Ararat, Victoria to an Irish railway worker, Patrick Hayes, and his wife Sarah. He was educated at St Mary's School, and then followed his father into the railway industry, joining the Ararat branch of Victorian Railways, and was later transferred to Melbourne. During the early 1920s, he was president of the shunters section and later the transportation sections of the Australian Railways Union.[1]

At the 1924 state election, he was elected to the seat of Melbourne for the Labor Party. He was also a councillor on the Melbourne City Council from 1939 to 1965.[1] When the government of John Cain took office in December 1952, Hayes was appointed to the Cain Ministry as Minister-in-Charge of Housing and the associated portfolio of Minister-in-Charge of Materials.

In March 1955, Hayes left the ALP in the 1955 split and joined the Australian Labor Party (Anti-Communist)—relinquishing his ministerial portfolio to John Sheehan.[2] He was defeated in the 1955 state election,[3] but remained active in the Democratic Labor Party, serving as deputy leader in Victoria in 1961.[1]

  1. ^ a b c Hayes, Thomas, Re-member (Parliament of Victoria), 1985.
  2. ^ "Cain silent on poll". The Argus. Melbourne. 2 April 1955. p. 5. Retrieved 10 May 2012 – via National Library of Australia.
  3. ^ Ainsley Symons (2012), 'Democratic Labor Party members in the Victorian Parliament of 1955–1958,' in Recorder (Australian Society for the Study of Labour History, Melbourne Branch) No. 275, November, Pages 4-5.