Standish Michael "Stan" Keon (2 July 1915 – 22 January 1987) 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 who represented the Australian Labor Party

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...

 in the Federal Parliament from 1949 to 1955 (having served previously in the State Parliament of Victoria), and who helped establish the Democratic Labor Party

Democratic Labor Party (historical)

The Democratic Labor Party was an Australian political party that existed from 1955 until 1978.-History:The DLP was formed as a result of a split in the Australian Labor Party that began in 1954. The split was between the party's national leadership, under the then party leader Dr H.V...

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Keon won the House of Representatives

Australian House of Representatives

The House of Representatives is one of the two houses of the Parliament of Australia; it is the lower house; the upper house is the Senate. Members of Parliament serve for terms of approximately three years....

 seat of Yarra

Division of Yarra

The Division of Yarra was an Australian Electoral Division in the state of Victoria. It was located in inner eastern suburban Melbourne, and was named after the Yarra River, which originally formed the eastern border of the Division, and eventually ran through it. It originally covered the suburbs...

 at the 1949 election

Australian federal election, 1949

Federal elections were held in Australia on 10 December 1949. All 121 seats in the House of Representatives, and 42 of the 60 seats in the Senate were up for election, where the single transferable vote was introduced...

, succeeding former Prime Minister (and fellow Catholic) James Scullin

James Scullin

James Henry Scullin , Australian Labor politician and the ninth Prime Minister of Australia. Two days after he was sworn in as Prime Minister, the Wall Street Crash of 1929 occurred, marking the beginning of the Great Depression and subsequent Great Depression in Australia.-Early life:Scullin was...

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An effective, often abrasive, performer in parliament, Keon was widely thought to be a future Prime Minister

Prime Minister of Australia

The Prime Minister of the Commonwealth of Australia is the highest minister of the Crown, leader of the Cabinet and Head of Her Majesty's Australian Government, holding office on commission from the Governor-General of Australia. The office of Prime Minister is, in practice, the most powerful...

. In 1955, he and six other Victorian

Victoria (Australia)

Victoria is the second most populous state in Australia. Geographically the smallest mainland state, Victoria is bordered by New South Wales, South Australia, and Tasmania on Boundary Islet to the north, west and south respectively....

 federal members were expelled from the Labor Party as members of the Industrial Groups

Industrial Groups

The Industrial Groups were groups formed by the Australian Labor Party in the late 1940s, to combat Communist Party influence in the trade unions....

. In April 1955, they established the Australian Labor Party (Anti-Communist)

Australian Labor Party (Anti-Communist)

The Australian Labor Party was the name initially used by the right-wing group which split away from the Australian Labor Party in 1955, and which later became the Democratic Labor Party in 1957....

, which was renamed the Democratic Labor Party in 1957. He was beaten by the Labor candidate, Jim Cairns

Jim Cairns

James Ford "J. F." Cairns , Australian politician, was prominent in the Labor movement through the 1960s and 1970s, and was briefly Deputy Prime Minister in the Whitlam government...

 at the 1955 election

Australian federal election, 1955

Federal elections were held in Australia on 10 December 1955. All 122 seats in the House of Representatives, and 30 of the 60 seats in the Senate were up for election. The incumbent Liberal Party of Australia led by Prime Minister of Australia Robert Menzies with coalition partner the Country Party...

; and his subsequent attempts to vanquish Cairns were unsuccessful. After losing his parliamentary seat, he had a spectacular falling-out with his erstwhile ally (and DLP éminence grise) B. A. Santamaria

B. A. Santamaria

Bartholomew Augustine "B. A." Santamaria, otherwise 'Bob' , was an Australian political activist and journalist and one of the most influential political figures in 20th century Australian history...

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