Tom Playford cultivates cooperation from unions and Labor in the push for state development

Clyde Cameron of the Australian Workers’ Union worked secretly with the Playford government to shut out members of the militant Miners’ Federation of Australia from jobs at the Leigh Creek coal mine.

Premier Tom Playford courted South Australian trade union leaders who sought better benefits for their members rather than radical action.

In the 1940s, Clyde Cameron of the Australian Workers’ Union, in return for being secretly authorised to certify who was suitable to be employed at Leigh Creek, ensured no members of the militant Miners’ Federation of Australia got a job there.

Albert Thompson of the Australasian Society of Engineers arranged regular meetings at the Trades Hall for South Australia’s auditor general J. W. Wainwright, architect of the state’s new industrial strategy, to brief union organisers on how they could help the government’s plans in exchange for improved conditions.

Playford had a comfortable relationship with Labor parliamentary opposition leader Mick O’Halloran (1949-60) that included cosy private deals and weekly dinner meetings to discuss state development. O’Halloran was quoted as saying at a dinner party that “I wouldn't want to be premier even if I could be. Tom Playford can often do more for my own voters than I could if I were in his shoes.”  

As Playford had more opposition from his Liberal and Country League colleagues in the Legislative Council than Labor, O'Halloran was often described as the premier's “junior partner". Playford called Labor “our opposition”, in contrast to opponents in his own party whom described as “critical without being helpful”. 

This cooperative nature of South Australian party politics didn’t change until Don Dunstan’s prominence in the Labor party during the late 1950s. Even then, Playford wasn’t criticised for his economics but for his government's comparatively low expenditure on public services such as education and healthcare.