Adversity & Resilience: Local Government

Mayors of Ipswich 1920s-1930s
1920            John Francis Lobb
1921-1929  Alfred Tully Stephenson
1930-1932  Oliver Perry
1933-1938  Alfred Tully Stephenson
1938-1939  Allan Godfrey Sutton
1939            James Charles Minnis

Party politics enters Council
With the increasing size and complexity of the city, the role of aldermen became more demanding.

Party politics entered Council during this period. Previously, candidates had been individuals or at most, had been urged to run by the progress association for their suburb. In 1911, former Labor Member of Parliament James Wilkinson nominated for election in the Council but was beaten by A.J. Stephenson. In 1914, Wilkinson and William Perro ran as endorsed Labor candidates and Walter Watson was nominated by the left-wing Workers’ Political Organisation (WPO), a move which was said to have created “a mild sensation”.

A Queensland Times editorial immediately complained about party politics entering local government. Wilkinson was the only one of the three elected. However he was in office for only a short time, as he died a year later.

Until 1921, only ratepayers had been eligible to vote at local authority elections but in that year, the electoral rules were amended to allow full adult franchise. The Labor Party saw this as an opportunity and fielded large teams in several parts of Queensland including Ipswich.

The Queensland Times was again strongly against party politics at local level and wrote several editorials and articles on this subject during the short campaign. The arguments for and against the intrusion of political parties was repeated by many other groups and commentators throughout the rest of the century.

Labor’s main promise was that it would straighten out Council finances. The Ipswich team was led by state member of Parliament Frank Cooper but it also included many manual workers. The newspaper editorials queried whether this team would have the financial experience to do better than the current aldermen.

The Ipswich Labor team was confident of success but the party was not popular at this time. A state Labor Government had just retrenched Ipswich workers and in Brisbane, unemployed people were sending deputations to the Premier. Labor lost resoundingly in most areas including Rockhampton, South Brisbane and Ipswich although it won five seats in Brisbane. Even the popular Frank Cooper lost by 500 votes.

In 1924, Labor again fielded a team in Ipswich, emphasising the importance of control of local government bodies to the success of the whole Labor movement. It also recognised the importance to the working population of Council’s role in health. The suburban progress associations fielded a combined team, the Central Progress Association.

This time, three Labor candidates were elected: Frank Cooper, W.V. Hefferan and A.S. Millar. Sitting Mayor Alfred Tully Stephenson was re-elected.

In the 1927 election, local progress associations once again banded together to field teams. Several formed the Combined Progress Associations team, while the Central, Booval and Newtown groups formed The People’s Party. Both issued a policy statement, and the Labor candidates claimed that their arrival had, for the first time, forced candidates to clearly enunciate policies. This appears to be largely true as before this decade, electors in this relatively small community voted according to their knowledge of a candidate as an individual; with a team, the combined policy became more important. [1]

Creating jobs in the Great Depression
Council struggled financially during this period. Providing staff to supervise the relief workers strained resources. Rates arrears also soared as people lost their jobs, and although the Finance Committee recommended selling the property of anyone who was three years overdue, Council was reluctant to do so.

As the Depression continued, real estate prices dropped, and between 1931 and 1937, the official valuation for Ipswich land dropped 18%. Council rated are levied on the valuation of properties and as this dropped, so did Council's income. The only solution was to raise the rate to maintain the same income but Council was again reluctant to do so - aldermen argued that if they were willing to forgive people unable to pay any rates, it seemed unfair to impose an extra burden on those who were actually contributing.

They were hard times, and the Great Depression left its psychological mark on virtually anyone who lived through those years. [2]