Richard Baker a strong conservative South Australian contributor to federation: first president of the senate
Richard Baker was elected to the senate in the first Australian commonwealth parliament and was its first president until retiring due to ill health in 1906.
Richard Chaffey Baker, although a leading South Australian conservative politician, brought a pragmatic approach to supporting Australian federation and played a significant part in forming the Australian constitution.
Born into a pastoralist family at North Adelaide in 1841, Baker was educated at Eton and Trinity College, Cambridge. He later became independently wealthy through pastoral and mining investments. He was called to the Bar at Lincoln’s Inn in 1864 but returned to set up a practice in Adelaide.
Politically, Baker created a coherent set of conservative values that crystallised in the National Defence League, an early precursor of the 20th Century Liberal Party.
In 1868, he was elected to the South Australian House of Assembly for the Barossa seat and in 1870, as attorney-general, he was the first South Australian-born minister. After six years out of politics, he was elected to the Legislative Council in 1877 until 1900, and its president from 1893.
Baker was socially and politically conservative but not reactionary. His willingness to compromise made him an effective contributor to the federal movement. But “Bully Baker” fought hard for his ideas with a doggedness that often angered his opponents.
The federation cause put him on the same side as his nemesis Charles Cameron Kingston, the radical liberal premier of South Australia. In December 1892, after exchanging insults in parliament, Kingston sent Baker an English bulldog revolver, challenging him to a duel. Baker chose instead to lunch at the Adelaide Club and notified the police, who arrested Kingston with a loaded weapon in Victoria Square. For the rest of his life, Baker boycotted Kingston, refusing to deal with him except on official occasions.
Baker was a member of the 1891 and 1897-98 federal conventions. At the 1897-98 convention when he became chairman of committees, Baker failed to prevent Kingston's election as president but managed to keep him off the important constitution drafting committee. Baker prepared a widely-used and influential booklet on the pros and cons of forms of federation and later produced other pamphlets on the subject.
Baker argued for a strong senate to protect the smaller states’ rights and rejected the British form of responsible government as incompatible with federation. He unsuccessfully proposed the senate be given equal power with the lower house in all legislation, including money bills, and for an equal ministers elected by both houses of parliament.
Baker considered himself republican and a monarchist. For him, republican government was something Australian colonists already had. A committed Anglican, he had many interests that reinforced his conservatism. He was chairman of the Adelaide Club and the Adelaide Jockey Club, president of the Royal Agricultural and Horticultural Society, a trustee of the Savings Bank, and on several pastoral and mining boards.
In 1901, he was elected to the senate in the first commonwealth parliament and was its first president until retiring due to ill health in 1906.