The Right Honourable  Sir Joseph Cook  GCMG
6th Prime Minister of Australia Elections: 1913, 1914
In office 24 June 1913 – 17 September 1914
Preceded by	Andrew Fisher
Succeeded by	Andrew Fisher
Constituency	Parramatta (New South Wales)
Born	7 December 1860(1860-12-07) Silverdale, England
Died	30 July 1947 (aged 86) Sydney
Political party	Labor, Free Trade/Anti-Socialist, Fusion

For the actor Joe Cook see Joe Cook (actor).

Sir Joseph Cook, GCMG (7 December 1860 – 30 July 1947) was an Australian politician and sixth Prime Minister of Australia.¹

Early years

Cook was born in Silverdale, a small mining town near Newcastle-under-Lyme in Staffordshire, England. He had no formal education and worked in the coal mines from the age of nine. He married Mary Turner in 1885 and shortly after emigrated to New South Wales.

Cook settled in Lithgow and worked in the coal mines, becoming General-Secretary of the Western Miners Association in 1887. In 1888, he participated in demonstrations against Chinese immigration.² He was also active in the Single Tax League and was a founding member of the Australian Labor Party in 1891.³

Political career

Joseph Cook in 1894

Cook was elected to the New South Wales Legislative Assembly as MP for the coalfields seat of Hartley in 1891, in Labor's first big breakthrough in Australian politics.⁴ It was the first time Labor had won a seat in any parliament in Australia. In 1894, however, Cook was the leader of the group who refused to accept the Labor Party's decision to make all members sign a "pledge" to be bound by decisions of the Parliamentary Labor Party (Caucus).² He left the party and became a follower of George Reid's Free Trade Party. He was a minister in Reid's government from 1894 to 1899.³

Federal Parliament

When the first federal Parliament was elected in 1901, Cook was elected, unopposed by Labor, member for Parramatta, a seat which then included the Lithgow area.² He became Reid's deputy, but did not hold office in Reid's 1904-05 ministry, mainly because Reid needed to offer portfolios to independent Protectionist members. When Reid retired from the party leadership in 1908, Cook agreed to merge the Free Traders with Alfred Deakin's Protectionists, and became deputy leader of the new Commonwealth Liberal Party.

Cook served as Defence Minister in Deakin's 1909-1910 ministry, then succeeded Deakin as Liberal leader when the government was defeated by Labor in the 1910 elections. He had by this time become completely philosophically opposed to socialism.

Prime Minister

At the 1913 elections he won a one-seat majority in the House of Representatives, while Labor retained a majority in the Senate, and in doing so became the 6th Prime Minister of Australia. Apparently unable to govern effectively without control of the Senate, Cook decided to bring about a double dissolution election under section 57 of the Constitution of Australia. He introduced a bill abolishing preferential employment for trade union members in the public service, a bill he knew the Senate would repeatedly reject. He then sought and obtained a double dissolution of the Parliament from the Governor-General.

Unfortunately for Cook, World War I broke out in the middle of the election campaign for the September 1914 election. Fisher was able to remind the voters that it was Labor which had favoured an independent Australian defence force, which the conservatives had opposed. Cook was defeated and Fisher resumed office.³

Nationalist Party

In 1916 the Labor government split when Fisher's successor, Billy Hughes, tried to introduce conscription. Cook agreed to become Hughes's deputy in the new Nationalist Party, and became Minister for the Navy in Hughes's government. The Nationalists had huge victories in the 1917 and 1919 elections. Cook was part of the Australian delegation at the Paris Peace Conference where he defended the White Australia Policy and supported Australia's annexation of German New Guinea. He was Treasurer (finance minister) 1920-21.

Cook resigned from Parliament in 1921 and was appointed Australian High Commissioner in London, where he served until 1927. In 1928–1929 he headed the Royal Commission into South Australia as affected by Federation. He died in Sydney in 1947, aged 86.

Honours

Bust of Joseph Cook by sculptor Wallace Anderson located in the Prime Minister's Avenue in the Ballarat Botanical Gardens

Cook was appointed to the Privy Council on 16 July 1914.⁵ He was knighted in 1918 as Knight Grand Cross of the Order of St Michael and St George (GCMG).⁶

See also

• Cook Ministry

Notes

Further reading

• G Bebbington, Pit Boy to Prime Minister, University of Keele, no date (quite rare but the only attempt at a Cook biography to date)