Ivan Joseph Welsh was an Australia

Australia

Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...

n politician.

Born in Newcastle

Newcastle, New South Wales

The Newcastle metropolitan area is the second most populated area in the Australian state of New South Wales and includes most of the Newcastle and Lake Macquarie Local Government Areas...

, Welsh attended Newcastle Boys' High School

Newcastle Boys' High School

Newcastle Boys High School was a selective high school located in Waratah—a suburb of Newcastle, New South Wales, Australia.- History :Newcastle Boys High School was established in 1929 when the Hill High School was split into two selective single-sex schools, the other being Newcastle Girls High...

 from 1952 to 1955 and served in the army from 1958 to 1967, including periods in Malaya

Federation of Malaya

The Federation of Malaya is the name given to a federation of 11 states that existed from 31 January 1948 until 16 September 1963. The Federation became independent on 31 August 1957...

 (1958–60) and Vietnam

Vietnam

Vietnam – sometimes spelled Viet Nam , officially the Socialist Republic of Vietnam – is the easternmost country on the Indochina Peninsula in Southeast Asia. It is bordered by China to the north, Laos to the northwest, Cambodia to the southwest, and the South China Sea –...

 (1965–66). In 1961, he married Lorraine Gay Cox. After his military service concluded, he became a restaurateur, caterer and salesman, and in 1984 was elected to Lake Macquarie City Council, becoming mayor in 1987.

In 1988, he was elected to the New South Wales Legislative Assembly

New South Wales Legislative Assembly

The Legislative Assembly, or lower house, is one of the two chambers of the Parliament of New South Wales, an Australian state. The other chamber is the Legislative Council. Both the Assembly and Council sit at Parliament House in the state capital, Sydney...

 as an Independent

Independent (politician)

In politics, an independent or non-party politician is an individual not affiliated to any political party. Independents may hold a centrist viewpoint between those of major political parties, a viewpoint more extreme than any major party, or they may have a viewpoint based on issues that they do...

, representing the seat of Swansea

Electoral district of Swansea

Swansea is an electoral district of the Legislative Assembly in the Hunter Region of the Australian state of New South Wales. It was represented by Milton Orkopoulos of the Australian Labor Party until his arrest in 2006 on allegations of child sex and drugs offences. It is now represented by Garry...

. He held the seat until his defeat by the Labor

Australian Labor Party

The Australian Labor Party is an Australian political party. It has been the governing party of the Commonwealth of Australia since the 2007 federal election. Julia Gillard is the party's federal parliamentary leader and Prime Minister of Australia...

 candidate in 1991, in which year he also lost the mayoralty. He continued to contest both state and federal elections, both as an Independent and (in 1996) as a member of the Liberal Party

Liberal Party of Australia

The Liberal Party of Australia is an Australian political party.Founded a year after the 1943 federal election to replace the United Australia Party, the centre-right Liberal Party typically competes with the centre-left Australian Labor Party for political office...

. Welsh died at Newcastle in 2007, and was cremated.