Henry Bolte
Encyclopedia
Sir Henry Edward Bolte GCMG
Order of St Michael and St George
The Most Distinguished Order of Saint Michael and Saint George is an order of chivalry founded on 28 April 1818 by George, Prince Regent, later George IV of the United Kingdom, while he was acting as Prince Regent for his father, George III....

 (20 May 1908 - 4 January 1990) was an Australia
Australia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...

n politician. He was the 38th and longest serving Premier of Victoria.

Early years

Henry Bolte was born in Ballarat
Ballarat, Victoria
Ballarat is a city in the state of Victoria, Australia, approximately west-north-west of the state capital Melbourne situated on the lower plains of the Great Dividing Range and the Yarrowee River catchment. It is the largest inland centre and third most populous city in the state and the fifth...

, the son of a publican of German descent (the family name was pronounced Bol-tee). He was to spend the first 24 years of his life (apart from three years at boarding school) in the small western district town of Skipton
Skipton, Victoria
Skipton is a town in the Western District of Victoria, Australia. The town is situated on the Glenelg Highway 166 kilometres west of the state capital, Melbourne and 52 kilometres south west of the regional centre, Ballarat. Part of Corangamite Shire Local government area, Skipton is on the banks...

. He was educated at Skipton primary school and Ballarat Grammar School
Ballarat Grammar School
Ballarat and Queens Anglican Grammar School is an independent, Anglican Church school located at Wendouree , Victoria, 123 km west of Melbourne.-History:...

: he was the last Victorian Premier not to attend a university. After working in various manual jobs he married Edith Elder in 1934 and bought a small farm at Bamganie near Meredith
Meredith, Victoria
Meredith is a town in Victoria, Australia, located on the Midland Highway between Ballarat and Geelong.Meredith Post Office opened on 1 November 1854 and the railway came to the town with the opening of the Geelong-Ballarat line in 1862, with the local railway station opened soon after. Now only...

, where he lived for the rest of his life, running sheep and cattle.

In 1940 Bolte joined the Australian Army
Australian Army
The Australian Army is Australia's military land force. It is part of the Australian Defence Force along with the Royal Australian Navy and the Royal Australian Air Force. While the Chief of Defence commands the Australian Defence Force , the Army is commanded by the Chief of Army...

 and served as a sergeant with a training regiment until 1945. After the war he returned to farming and became active in the newly-formed Liberal Party
Liberal Party of Australia
The Liberal Party of Australia is an Australian political party.Founded a year after the 1943 federal election to replace the United Australia Party, the centre-right Liberal Party typically competes with the centre-left Australian Labor Party for political office...

. At the 1945 election he stood unsuccessfully for the seat of Hampden in the Victorian Legislative Assembly
Victorian Legislative Assembly
The Victorian Legislative Assembly is the lower house of the Parliament of Victoria in Australia. Together with the Victorian Legislative Council, the upper house, it sits in Parliament House in the state capital, Melbourne.-History:...

, but in 1947 he stood again and was elected.

Parliamentary career

Victorian politics was volatile at this time, with a succession of weak short-term governments. The electoral system was malapportioned in favour of rural areas, which gave the minority Country Party
National Party of Australia
The National Party of Australia is an Australian political party.Traditionally representing graziers, farmers and rural voters generally, it began as the The Country Party, but adopted the name The National Country Party in 1975, changed to The National Party of Australia in 1982. The party is...

 disproportionate power. As a rural Liberal, Bolte despised the Country Party nearly as much as the Labor Party
Australian Labor Party
The Australian Labor Party is an Australian political party. It has been the governing party of the Commonwealth of Australia since the 2007 federal election. Julia Gillard is the party's federal parliamentary leader and Prime Minister of Australia...

. This came about when Albert Dunstan
Albert Dunstan
Sir Albert Arthur Dunstan, KCMG was an Australian politician. A member of the Country Party , Dunstan was the 33rd Premier of Victoria. His term as Premier was the second-longest in the state's history, behind Sir Henry Bolte...

 (Deputy Premier and leader of the Country Party
National Party of Australia
The National Party of Australia is an Australian political party.Traditionally representing graziers, farmers and rural voters generally, it began as the The Country Party, but adopted the name The National Country Party in 1975, changed to The National Party of Australia in 1982. The party is...

) unexpectedly withdrew support for the Premier, Stanley Argyle
Stanley Argyle
Sir Stanley Seymour Argyle KBE , Australian politician, was the 32nd Premier of Victoria. He was born in Kyneton, Victoria, the son of a grazier, and was educated at Brighton Grammar School and the University of Melbourne, where he graduated in medicine...

, breaking the coalition agreement and forming a minority Country Party
National Party of Australia
The National Party of Australia is an Australian political party.Traditionally representing graziers, farmers and rural voters generally, it began as the The Country Party, but adopted the name The National Country Party in 1975, changed to The National Party of Australia in 1982. The party is...

 government, which Labor
Australian Labor Party
The Australian Labor Party is an Australian political party. It has been the governing party of the Commonwealth of Australia since the 2007 federal election. Julia Gillard is the party's federal parliamentary leader and Prime Minister of Australia...

 supported in return for some policy concessions in April 1935.

When Bolte was elected to Parliament in 1947 the Liberal leader was Thomas Hollway
Thomas Hollway
Thomas Tuke "Tom" Hollway was the 36th Premier of Victoria, holding office from 1947 to 1950, and again for a short period in 1952....

, who also came from Ballarat but was a much more liberal politician than Bolte. In 1951 Hollway tried to reform the electoral system, which caused a split in the Liberal Party and his replacement by Trevor Oldham
Trevor Oldham
Trevor Donald Oldham was an Australian politician, who was the leader of the Liberal Party in the state of Victoria from 1952 until his death in 1953....

, with Bolte as Deputy Leader. When Oldham was killed in an air crash on the way to the coronation of Elizabeth II
Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom
Elizabeth II is the constitutional monarch of 16 sovereign states known as the Commonwealth realms: the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Jamaica, Barbados, the Bahamas, Grenada, Papua New Guinea, the Solomon Islands, Tuvalu, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Belize,...

 in 1953, Bolte was elected leader.

The Labor Party under John Cain
John Cain (senior)
John Cain was an Australian politician, who became the 34th premier of Victoria, and was the first Australian Labor Party leader to win a majority in the Victorian Legislative Assembly. He was the only premier of Victoria whose son also served as premier.-Early life:Cain was born, one of 18...

 had come to power at the 1952 elections, but in 1955 the party suffered a split over the issue of communist
Communism
Communism is a social, political and economic ideology that aims at the establishment of a classless, moneyless, revolutionary and stateless socialist society structured upon common ownership of the means of production...

 influence in the trade unions, and Cain's government had fallen when a faction of anti-communist Catholics MPs voted against it in Parliament. Bolte won the 1955 elections with a huge majority, routing both Labor and the Country Party. He was able to form the first stable conservative government in Victoria for many years.

Bolte was a rough-hewn politician who liked to be seen as a simple farmer, but he had a shrewd political mind. He rapidly consolidated himself in power, helped by the expelled faction of the Labor Party, the Democratic Labor Party
Democratic Labor Party
The Democratic Labor Party is a political party in Australia that espouses social conservatism and opposes neo-liberalism. The first "DLP" Senator in decades, party vice-president John Madigan was elected to the Australian Senate with 2.3 percent of the primary vote in Victoria at the 2010 federal...

, which directed its second preferences to the Liberals at elections. His populist
Populism
Populism can be defined as an ideology, political philosophy, or type of discourse. Generally, a common theme compares "the people" against "the elite", and urges social and political system changes. It can also be defined as a rhetorical style employed by members of various political or social...

 attacks on the trade unions, intellectuals, protesters and the press won him a large following.

Infrastructure building

Bolte used state debt to provide a wide range of state infrastructure and he was very successful at winning overseas investment for the state. Some of his large projects were increased coal production and power generation in the Latrobe Valley
Latrobe Valley
The Latrobe Valley is an inland geographical region and urban area of Gippsland in the state of Victoria, Australia. It is east of the City Of Melbourne and nestled between the Strzelecki Ranges to the south and the Great Dividing Range to the north – with the highest peak to the north of the...

, new offshore oil and gas fields in Gippsland
Gippsland
Gippsland is a large rural region in Victoria, Australia. It begins immediately east of the suburbs of Melbourne and stretches to the New South Wales border, lying between the Great Dividing Range to the north and Bass Strait to the south...

, the West Gate Bridge
West Gate Bridge
The West Gate Bridge is a steel box girder cable-stayed bridge in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. It spans the Yarra River, just north of its mouth into Port Phillip, and is a vital link between the inner city and Melbourne's western suburbs with the industrial suburbs in the west and with the city...

 over the lower Yarra River
Yarra River
The Yarra River, originally Birrarung, is a river in east-central Victoria, Australia. The lower stretches of the river is where the city of Melbourne was established in 1835 and today Greater Melbourne dominates and influences the landscape of its lower reaches...

, a new international airport for Melbourne at Tullamarine
Melbourne Airport
Melbourne Airport , also known as Tullamarine Airport, is the primary airport serving the city of Melbourne and the second busiest in Australia. It was opened in 1970 to replace the nearby Essendon Airport. Melbourne Airport is the sole international airport of the four airports serving the...

 and two new universities (Monash University
Monash University
Monash University is a public university based in Melbourne, Victoria. It was founded in 1958 and is the second oldest university in the state. Monash is a member of Australia's Group of Eight and the ASAIHL....

 and La Trobe University
La Trobe University
La Trobe University is a multi-campus university in Victoria, Australia. It was established in 1964 by an Act of Parliament to become the third oldest university in the state of Victoria. The main campus of La Trobe is located in the Melbourne suburb of Bundoora; two other major campuses are...

). Bolte was easily re-elected at the 1958, 1961 and 1964 state elections.

He was appointed a Knight Commander of the Order of St. Michael and St. George (KCMG) in the New Year's Day Honours of 1966.

Capital punishment controversy

Bolte was a proponent of using capital punishment
Capital punishment
Capital punishment, the death penalty, or execution is the sentence of death upon a person by the state as a punishment for an offence. Crimes that can result in a death penalty are known as capital crimes or capital offences. The term capital originates from the Latin capitalis, literally...

 as a deterrent against violent crime. Many believed he was foiled when after Robert Peter Tait murdered the old woman of a Hawthorn
Hawthorn, Victoria
Hawthorn is a suburb in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, east from Melbourne's central business district. Its Local Government Area is the City of Boroondara...

 vickery
Vickery
Vickery is an English surname. There are several people of note that carry this name.* Brian Campbell Vickery a British information scientist* Howard Leroy Vickery - U.S...

 and was sentenced to hang but was granted a eleventh hour reprieve in 1962 after the High Court had found him insane.

Justice Starke subscribed to the substitute Tait theory, Starke had defended Tait but later on was the sentencing judge in the R v Ryan & Walker 1966. Starke said After Bolte was denied with Tait he simply waited for the next cab off the ranks, and poor Ryan happened to be the next cab!

In 1967 Bolte would not be denied, in 1965 two prisoners, Ronald Ryan
Ronald Ryan
Ronald Joseph Ryan was the last person to be legally executed in Australia. Ryan was found guilty of shooting and killing prison officer George Hodson during a prison escape from Pentridge Prison, Victoria in 1965...

 and Peter Walker, had escaped from Melbourne's Pentridge Prison
HM Prison Pentridge
HM Prison Pentridge was an Australian prison built in 1850 in Coburg, Victoria. The first prisoners arrived in 1851. The prison officially closed on 1 May 1997....

, killing a prison guard in the process. They were recaptured, and Ryan was sentenced to death for murder.
Bolte had the power to recommend clemency, but declined to exercise it, arguing that the death penalty was a necessary deterrent for crime against Government Officials and Law enforcement officers.

All calls for clemency, petitions and protests were to no avail. Bolte was determined that the law be upheld. Ryan was hanged in February 1967. Bolte had said If I thought the law was wrong I would change it.

Bolte's insistence on having Ryan hanged earned him the opposition of the Melbourne press, particularly the The Age
The Age
The Age is a daily broadsheet newspaper, which has been published in Melbourne, Australia since 1854. Owned and published by Fairfax Media, The Age primarily serves Victoria, but is also available for purchase in Tasmania, the Australian Capital Territory and border regions of South Australia and...

, the churches, the universities and most of the legal profession. It also alienated sections of the Liberal Party and some members of his own Cabinet, including his eventual successor, Rupert Hamer
Rupert Hamer
Sir Rupert James Hamer, AC, KCMG, ED , generally known until he was knighted in 1982 as Dick Hamer, Australian Liberal Party politician, was the 39th Premier of Victoria, serving from 1972 to 1981.-Early years:...

. But Bolte had correctly interpreted the populist appeal of his law-and-order stand, and at the 1967 elections the Liberals gained six seats. The Liberals went from 38 of 66 seats in 1964 to 44 of 73 in 1967.

Later career

After 1968, when Bolte turned 60, his appeal to younger urban voters declined, and he showed little sympathy with new issues such as the environment and civil liberties. His standing was also reduced by a crisis in the state education system, with teacher shortages and overcrowded schools as the children of the baby boom
Baby boom
A baby boom is any period marked by a greatly increased birth rate. This demographic phenomenon is usually ascribed within certain geographical bounds and when the number of annual births exceeds 2 per 100 women...

 passed through the education system. The government recruited large numbers of American
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 schoolteachers to deal with the shortage. At the same time the Labor Party began to revive under a new leader, Clyde Holding
Clyde Holding
Allan Clyde Holding Australian politician, was Leader of the Opposition in Victoria for ten years, and was later a federal minister.-Early life and education:...

.

At the 1970 state elections the Liberals seemed in serious danger of losing office, or at least being forced into a coalition with the Country Party, but Bolte was saved by Holding's left-wing enemies in the Labor Party, who sabotaged his campaign by publicly opposing government funding for non-government schools (which Holding and Gough Whitlam
Gough Whitlam
Edward Gough Whitlam, AC, QC , known as Gough Whitlam , served as the 21st Prime Minister of Australia. Whitlam led the Australian Labor Party to power at the 1972 election and retained government at the 1974 election, before being dismissed by Governor-General Sir John Kerr at the climax of the...

 had made Labor policy). Nevertheless the Liberals lost six seats.

Bolte was promoted to Knight Grand Cross of the Order of St Michael and St George (GCMG) in the New Year's Day Honours of 1972.

Bolte was shrewd enough to see that the Liberals needed a new leader and a new image for the 1970s and in August 1972 he resigned, apparently with no regrets. He arranged for Rupert Hamer
Rupert Hamer
Sir Rupert James Hamer, AC, KCMG, ED , generally known until he was knighted in 1982 as Dick Hamer, Australian Liberal Party politician, was the 39th Premier of Victoria, serving from 1972 to 1981.-Early years:...

, a Melbourne-based progressive Liberal, to succeed him. This proved a sound judgement, since Hamer went on to win three more elections for the Liberals. Bolte retired to his farm, where he lived quietly until his death in January 1990.

Drink driving controversy

On 24 March 1984, Bolte was involved in a serious head-on accident when he was driving home after an evening in the local hotel near his property at Bamganie. Bolte and the occupants of the other car were taken to the Ballarat Base Hospital, where blood samples were taken to test for alcohol levels. Whilst there was no evidence of alcohol in the blood of the other driver involved, there were indications of an alcohol content in excess of 0.05% in Bolte's blood. Subsequently, further samples were collected from the hospital by the police, but these were found to have been substituted, and the sample box containing them had been unlocked by an unknown person. An enquiry found that it would have been unfair to proceed with prosecution because of interference with the evidence.
Bolte later told Prior Of course I know nothing, I was unconscious

Bridge

The Bolte Bridge
Bolte Bridge
The Bolte Bridge is a large twin Cantilever bridge in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. It spans the Yarra River and Victoria Harbour in the Docklands precinct to the west of the Melbourne CBD...

 that spans Melbourne
Melbourne
Melbourne is the capital and most populous city in the state of Victoria, and the second most populous city in Australia. The Melbourne City Centre is the hub of the greater metropolitan area and the Census statistical division—of which "Melbourne" is the common name. As of June 2009, the greater...

's Docklands is named after him.

Further reading

  • Tom Prior, Bolte by Bolte (Craftsman Publishing, 1990) ISBN 1-875428-00-3
  • Peter Blazey, Bolte: a Political Biography (Mandarin Press, 1990)
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