- page -
http://www.cdu.edu.au/cdupress
Go Back >> List of Entries
live, they were the most perfectly matched couple you could imagine. From then on I really regarded Darwin as
my home’.
Ted continued his education in Western Australia but made frequent visits to his parents in Darwin, learning
more about his father during each visit, including the fact that he had spent time gold mining and buffalo and
crocodile shooting in the Pine Creek region.
After teaching for a year in Western Australia, Ted got a two-year secondment from the Education Department
in 1951 to become an organiser for the Junior Farmer Movement in Armadale, Western Australia. The Movement
was aimed at helping young farmers and Ted later described the period as one of the most fascinating of his life.
It was during this period that he met his future wife, Audrey, who was the daughter of a conservative farming
family. She became involved in the Movement and worked with Ted on the communities, gradually being drawn
away from her parents’ conservative politics towards Labor policies. When Ted moved to Perth in 1953 to take
up a job as teacher at Perth Boys’ High, Audrey, who by then had also formally endorsed Labor policies, got a job
as a stenographer. The following year they were married. For most of the next 10 years, they moved to different
teaching positions in Western Australia where Ted was the innovator of the work experience technique in schools.
He became a Reserve Officer with the Royal Australian Air Force from 1961.
About 1963 Ted and Audrey moved to Darwin where he became the first appointed officer in the Northern
Territory concerned with adult education for Aborigines, a job he found challenging and rewarding. He also joined
the local branch of the Australian Labor Party (ALP) and soon became Secretary. The family returned to Perth at
the end of 1965 to enable Ted to complete a university degree, (he ultimately was awarded Bachelor of Arts and
Bachelor of Education degrees), but they returned to Darwin in 1968 when Ted became a permanent education
officer.
By this time, he was actively involved in the Labor Party, having served on the West Australian State Executive
for 1966–1967. His move to Darwin marked what many regard as the ‘rebirth of the Labor Party in the Territory’.
He and colleagues like Fred Drysdale, Harry Bauer and Paddy Carroll worked hard on the party constitution and
on re-activating interest in the party. According to many observers, Ted did a great deal to give the party a more
respectable and cohesive image than it had for a while. As Senator Bob Collins said in paying tribute to him after
his death, ‘he will be remembered with gratitude by the rank and file members of the ALP in the NT because he
played an absolutely crucial role in getting the party on to some sort of professional footing’. It was Ted Robertson
who almost solely provided the initiative to reform the party in the Territory and he soon became President of the
Darwin Branch.
Ted stood for the House of Representatives for the Territory in 1969 and again in 1972, both times unsuccessfully.
He became party president from 1970 to 1977 and served on the federal executive. He realised the ALP needed
new policies and needed to revitalise its membership, and along with fellow reformer John Waters and others,
worked hard to achieve those goals.
During this time, he also became active in community affairs. He served as an inaugural board member of the
Northern Territory Young Men’s Christian Association (YMCA) from 1970 and was a member of the national
board from 1980. In 1973–1974, he was chair of the Northern Territory Council of Social Services and vice chair
from 1974. In 1974–1975, he served as a member of the Cyclone Tracy Relief Trust Fund and a member of the
Darwin Citizens’ Council. From 1975–1979, he was chair of the Northern Territory Chapter of the Australian
College of Education and he was involved with Austcare and Apex.
Following the election of the Whitlam Labor Government in 1972, the Territory was granted Senate
representation and a fully elected Legislative Assembly and in 1975, Ted stood for the Senate. Along with the
Country Liberal Party’s Bernie Kilgariff, Ted was elected and he held the seat until 1987.
He served as the Australian Labor Party Whip in the Senate for seven years, first as Opposition Whip from
1980 and then as Government Whip from 1983, following the election of the Hawke Labor government. As Whip,
he was instrumental in having closed circuit television systems introduced into the old Parliament House so that
the Whips could see the Chambers and know where people were. He was also active on several parliamentary
committees, including those concerned with education and arts, national resources and estimates. One of the jobs
he found most interesting was his trip to Zimbabwe as part of the parliamentary delegation that visited that country
to officially observe the elections there. He represented Parliament on the Council of the Australian Institute of
Aboriginal Studies and was a member of parliamentary delegations to the Indian sub-continent, the 1978 of the
Constitutional Convention in Perth and as well as the 1980 observer team in Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe). He also
led parliamentary delegations to Thailand and Indo-China.
In February 1984, Ted was elected as the Territory’s delegate to the ALP’s powerful Federal Executive and in
July of that year beat Warren Snowdon for the top position on the ALP Senate ticket for the next federal election.
Ted’s commitment to the Labor Party was recognised in 1986 when he was made a life member of the Party at a
special function in the Northern Territory. In November 1986 Bob Collins, who had recently resigned as Leader
of the Opposition in the Northern Territory, defeated Ted in preselection for the Senate. Collins went on to win the
Senate seat and become the first Territorian to serve as a federal minister and cabinet minister.
After retiring from politics in 1987, Ted became President of the YMCA and he and Audrey moved to Canberra.
Over the next few years, he and Audrey were able to spend time with their son and daughter before Ted died of
cancer on 4 January 1991 after battling the disease for three years. A memorial service was held for him in Darwin
where he had spent so much of his adult life and contributed so much to the political and educational life of
the Territory. In federal parliament his colleagues paid him tribute with Senator John Button, then leader of the
Government in the Senate, leading the way with these remarks: ‘We place on record our appreciation of his long
and meritorious public service. His election to the Federal Parliament in 1975 as senator for the Northern Territory