State Parliamentary Career
The Queensland state electorate of South Brisbane was held from 1929 to 1932 by Neil MacGroarty, Attorney-General in the government of Arthur Moore. MacGroarty was influential in creating the Mungana Royal Commission to destroy the political career of Ted Theodore, and reportedly incurred the displeasure of the influential Catholic Archbishop of Brisbane, James Duhig.
Gair worked at consolidating his hold on the marginal electorate, at which he was largely successful except in the 1938 election, when a newly-formed Protestant Labor Party targeted his seat. He fended off the challenge and retained a low profile in Parliament. In 1941 Vince Gair's only daughter from his first marriage died. In 1944 he remarried, to Ellen Sexton; the couple had two sons.
Gair was a backbencher for ten years during the William Forgan Smith government before being appointed as Secretary for Mines under the elderly Frank Cooper in 1942. The same year he became Minister for Labour and Employment (later Labour and Industry), and in 1947 he was elected by his colleagues as Deputy Premier. In 1950 he also became Treasurer. Gair had not previously held office in a trade union. Many Labor parliamentarians in Queensland in particular were closely aligned with the Australian Workers Union (AWU). Premier Edward Hanlon was the first in a succession of Queensland premiers not to be linked with the AWU, and this fact helped bring about a reduction in the union's political influence.
In 1948, the Industrial Groups associated with the Catholic Movement of B. A. Santamaria were introduced into Queensland to combat the influence of the Communist Party of Australia in the trade unions. The Industrial Groups (whose members were known as Groupers) were supported by Gair, who hoped to use them to cement his personal power base within the party's organisational wing, as well as by union leader Joe Bukowski and the AWU. When conflict with the Groupers precipitated a national split in the ALP, leading to the formation of the breakaway Democratic Labor Party (DLP), the national organisation of the AWU swung its support behind ALP leader Dr H. V. Evatt and disbanded the Groups. This would later deprive Gair of a potential source of support within the party organisation. Hanlon died on 15 January 1952 and Gair, having been acting premier since the previous August, was elected by the ALP Caucus to succeed him on 17 January.
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