Francis Michael Forde (18 July 1890 – 28 January 1983) was an Australian politician who served as the 15th prime minister of Australia from 6 to 13 July 1945, in a caretaker capacity following the death of John Curtin. He was deputy leader of the Australian Labor Party (ALP) from 1932 to 1946 and is the shortest-serving prime minister in Australia's history.
Forde was born in Mitchell, Queensland, to Irish immigrant parents. He eventually settled in Rockhampton, and was a schoolteacher and telegraphist before entering politics. Having joined the ALP at a young age, Forde was elected to the Queensland Legislative Assembly in 1917, aged 26. He transferred to the House of Representatives at the 1922 federal election, winning the Division of Capricornia. Forde was an assistant minister and minister in the Scullin government from 1929 to 1932, and was largely responsible for the government's policy of tariff increases during the Great Depression. He entered the cabinet in 1931 as Minister for Trade and Customs.
After Labor's landslide defeat at the 1931 election, Forde was elected deputy leader in place of Ted Theodore. He was expected to become party leader after Scullin's retirement in 1935 but lost to John Curtin by one vote. He returned to cabinet in 1941 as Minister for the Army in the Curtin government, and as the de facto deputy prime minister was one of the government's most prominent figures. When John Curtin died in office in 1945, Forde was appointed prime minister to serve while the Labor Party elected a new leader. He contested the leadership ballot against Ben Chifley and Norman Makin, but Chifley emerged victorious.
Forde continued on as deputy leader and army minister in the Chifley government, but lost his seat at the 1946 election. He then was High Commissioner to Canada from 1947 to 1953. Forde attempted to re-enter federal parliament in 1954, but was unsuccessful. He won a state by-election in Queensland the following year – the only former prime minister to enter state parliament – but served only a single term before again being defeated. Forde died at the age of 92, and was accorded a state funeral. At the time of his death, he was the longest-lived Australian prime minister, a record surpassed by Gough Whitlam.
Forde was born on 18 July 1890 in Mitchell, Queensland. He was the second of six children born to Ellen (née Quirk) and John Forde. His parents were both Irish immigrants – his father was born in Ballinaglera, County Leitrim, while his mother was from County Tipperary. His father was working as a grazier at the time of his birth, and later worked as a railway supervisor.
Forde began his education at the local state school and later boarded at St Mary's College, Toowoomba. He qualified as a schoolteacher via the monitorial system, but at the age of 20 joined Queensland Railways as a clerk in the telegraphy department. He later moved to Brisbane to work as a telegraphist for the Postmaster-General's Department, at the same time studying electrical engineering. In 1914, Forde was transferred to Rockhampton. He was involved with the Australian Natives' Association (ANA), the Australian Workers' Union, and the Rockhampton Workers' Political Organisation, and helped campaign for the "No" vote in the conscription referendums of 1916 and 1917. His role as president of the Rockhampton branch of the ANA "marked the beginning of participation in community debates and public life".
Forde joined the Labor Party in 1915, at the urging of state MP James Larcombe, who became his mentor. In 1917, aged 26, he won a by-election to the seat of Rockhampton in the Queensland Legislative Assembly. It had been vacated by John Adamson, who had resigned from the Labor Party in the wake of the 1916 party split and unsuccessfully sought Nationalist Party preselection for the Senate. Forde was re-elected to Rockhampton at the 1918 and 1920 state elections. He was a supporter of the Central Queensland Separation Movement, one of the many new state movements active around that time.
Election to federal parliament
In 1921, the state Labor government of Ted Theodore passed controversial legislation that allowed state MPs to run for federal parliament and automatically return to their seat in state parliament if they lost, without having to face a by-election. It was widely reported that Forde was intended to be the primary beneficiary of the new legislation. However, the federal Nationalist government responded by amending the Commonwealth Electoral Act 1918 to overrule the state law. In October 1922, Forde resigned from state parliament to run in the Division of Capricornia at the 1922 federal election. He was successful, defeating Nationalist incumbent and Labor defector William Higgs. Forde's successful foray into federal politics triggered the 1923 Rockhampton by-election. The bitterly fought by-election was successfully contested by Labor's George Farrell, who had worked on Forde's federal campaign.
Forde took his seat in the House of Representatives at the age of 32, becoming one of the youngest members of the new parliament. He soon became known as a champion of the sugar and cotton industries. Despite the party's dominance in state politics, he was the only Labor MP in Queensland to be re-elected at the 1925 federal election. He remained the only Queenslander in the ALP caucus until August 1928, when John MacDonald was appointed to a casual vacancy in the Senate. In 1927, Forde was appointed as his Labor Party's representative to the Royal Commission on the Moving Picture Industry. He and the other commissioners travelled around Australia interviewing 250 witnesses. The royal commission recommended the establishment of a national film censorship board, with films able to be refused registration on morality grounds.
Scullin government (1929–1932)
The Labor Party won the 1929 election, with James Scullin becoming prime minister. Forde was elected to the Scullin Ministry as an assistant minister, and was also appointed to the Committee of Public Accounts. His superior minister was James Fenton, the Minister for Trade and Customs. Fenton was absent from the country or otherwise occupied for most of 1930, including as Acting Prime Minister for five months while Scullin attended the 1930 Imperial Conference in London. Forde oversaw the Department of Trade and Customs in Fenton's absence, and also deputised for Parker Moloney, the Minister for Markets and Transport.
Forde remained loyal to the Scullin government during the ALP split of 1931, supporting the Premiers' Plan. When Fenton and Joseph Lyons resigned from cabinet in February 1931, Forde was elected to one of the vacancies and appointed Minister for Trade and Customs. At the 1931 election, the ALP suffered a landslide and returned only 14 MPs, the lowest total in its history. However, in Forde's state of Queensland the party actually increased its representation, winning an additional two House seats and all three seats in the Senate.
Forde was the "principal architect" of the Scullin government's policy of high tariffs, which aimed to reduce the effect of the Great Depression on secondary industries. He introduced what The Canberra Times called a "tariff extravaganza", and was known as a staunch protectionist. However, the government's measures had little effect on the economy. Forde was a supporter of the emerging Australian motion picture industry. Despite his reputation as a protectionist, he agreed to reduce the tariff on imported sound equipment from 60 percent to just 10 percent, after vigorous lobbying from F. W. Thring. In June 1931, he was invited to officially open Efftee Studios, Thring's production studio in Melbourne. He was "shamelessly cultivated as a good friend of Efftee, with an open invitation to look in on shooting and mingle with the stars". One of Thring's investors was Tom Holt, the father of another future Australian prime minister Harold Holt.
As acting customs minister in 1930, Forde played a key role in the banning of Norman Lindsay's novel Redheap, the first occasion on which the federal government had banned the importation of a book by an Australian author. Unusually, Forde sought advice on the matter not only from his departmental head Ernest Hall, but also from solicitor-general Robert Garran and private barrister J. V. Gould. As a "pious Catholic", he was persuaded by Garran and Gould's advice that Redheap was "indecent and obscene [and] blasphemous as well". His decision to ban Redheap was controversial and came under attack from libertarian and anti-censorship elements within his party, particularly from Lindsay's home state of Victoria. However, at the 1930 ALP Federal Conference, attempts to censure Forde failed, and a watered down resolution was passed supporting freedom of expression but allowing for censorship of "licentious and pornographic literature". Forde later authorised the banning of Frederic Manning's The Middle Parts of Fortune, overriding departmental advice, and refused an appeal from Jean Devanny to unban her novel The Butcher Shop.