Denis Murphy (Australian politician)

Denis Murphy was born in Nambour, Queensland in 1936.[1] His parents were Martin Murphy and Lilian May, née Campbell.[2] He was the youngest of eight children and went to an all boys Catholic school, St Joseph's Nudgee College.[1] Costar and Saunders (2011) report that "Murphy excelled academically and athletically, most notably in Cricket".[2] In 1955, Murphy went on to study high school Physical Education (PE) teaching at Queensland Teachers' Training College.[2] The next year he began teaching at Nundah State School.[2]

Murphy married Gwendoline May Butcher in 1959 and one year later went on to teach in the United Kingdom coaching a senior cricket team until he returned to Brisbane in 1961.[2] Upon his return, Murphy taught at Redcliffe State High School and then left this position in 1965.[1] During his time at Redcliffe State High School, he worked at night doing furniture removals and at one point worked as a railway clerk.[1] As well as PE, Murphy also taught mathematics and English.[2] At 28 years old (1964) he joined the Australian Labor Party.[2] In 1965 he became President of the Young Labor Association of Queensland and held the position until 1967.[2]

While working as a teacher Murphy began studying part-time at the University of Queensland, completing a Bachelor of Arts in 1964 and then a PhD in 1972.[1] Murphy's doctoral thesis was an analysis of the career of T. J. Ryan, former Premier of Queensland. The University of Queensland Press later published it as T.J. Ryan : a political biography (1975).[3] In 1966 he left his job as a PE teacher and took on a full-time position at the University of Queensland.[1]

In 1966, Denis Murphy began his career as a tertiary educator and worked at the University of Queensland (UQ) as a tutor in Australian History.[3] Costar and Saunders note that Murphy acquired this position after "completing a masters' qualifying thesis on Queensland's state enterprises".[2] Two years later, as Murphy became increasingly active in the Australian Labor Party (ALP), he subsequently joined the Queensland Central Executive.[2] He was employed by the University of Queensland History Department until 1984.[2] During his time there he published two biographies on Labor politicians as well as five books with which he edited and wrote in collaboration with other tertiary academics.[4] Before his rise in politics, he was an academic historian and researched extensively in Australian History.[3] After working as a tutor in history at UQ for 3 years, Murphy later rose to senior tutor and then in 1975 became a senior lecturer.[2] Bradley Bowden attributes Murphy's rise to his heavy involvement in the Australian Labor Party as he received access to archives by the State Secretary at the time, Tom Burns.[4] Murphy wrote a number of biographies including thirteen submissions to the Australian Dictionary of Biography. He became the Chair of the ADB's Queensland Working Party in 1974.[2]

Whilst at UQ, Murphy oversaw an increase in learning opportunities within the history department as enrolments were raised 96 to 870 in 3 years by his efforts.[4] This, however, had a negative impact on his written works as Murphy increased his teaching workload due to a lack of staff needed to support the increase in students.[4] Bradley Bowden recounts that, during this period, Murphy was also Chair of the Departmental Assembly at UQ as well as Queensland Central Executive member and "Labor's candidate in the 1972 federal election".[4] This summation of roles resulted in Murphy's political theses to become underdeveloped and less respected by other academics.[4] Critics scrutinised Murphy's publications at one point due to an "absence of theory... and providing syntheses of the work of others without checking its veracity".[4]

Throughout his time as an historian, Murphy began a push for party reform within the Australian Labor Party's Queensland branch.[1] In 1978 Murphy presented a speech for over 300 party members and critiqued the capabilities of the current Queensland Central Executive leaders.[2] The majority ruled in favor of Murphy's recommendation for a shift in the party and he was named the leader of a new reform team.[2] During this time Murphy led a push for a restructure in the ALP and attained a pilots license in order to fly statewide to share his message.[1] Anthony Albanese, the 2021 Leader of the Australian Labor Party states that Murphy led reforms in "affirmative action along with a new pre-selection procedure providing branch pre-selection (which was) reviewed by a 40 person electoral college."[1] A story in the Sydney Morning Herald stated that "Murphy believes that the reforms he is seeking are the only way future historians will be able to talk about Labor in Power''.[5]

In 1981 he was elected the President of the Queensland State Labor Party.[2] Albanese claims that Murphy positioned the ALP to overcome the problems caused by Joh Bjelke-Petersen, the conservative premier at the time.[1] Murphy published an article titled Queensland's Image and Australian Nationalism (1978), in which he criticized the premier stating, "Mr. Bjelke Petersen... is one of the less stable and less competent Premiers the state has had".[6] In 1980, Murphy wrote Labor in Power, which received negative responses particularly from Bede Nairn, another Labor Party Historian, "attacked the book's uncritical discussions of Labor and its affiliated unions".[4] Despite criticisms and any negative responses to Murphy's political engagements, in 1983 he won the position of The State Seat of Stafford in the State Election.[2]

Not long after his election into the Liberal Seat of Stafford in 1983, Denis Murphy was diagnosed with an unspecified cancer and was ill for eight months before he died on the 21st of June 1984.[7][2] He did not live to give his maiden speech and the speech was instead given by Mr. Peter Beattie.[5] The Sydney Morning Herald reports that in Mr Beattie's speech he said "As a close personal friend of Denis Murphy I want to pay strongest possible tribute to him on behalf of the Labor Movement and the people of Queensland."[7] After Beattie's speech, over 200 delegates attending the conference stood together and bowed their heads in a minutes silence to pay respects to Murphy.[8]

• Prelude to Power: The Rise of the Labour Party in Queensland 1885-1915 (1970)
• T.J. Ryan: A Political Biography (1975)
• Labour In Politics (1975)
• Queensland Political Portraits 1859-1965 (1978)
• Ken Laidlaw: A White Collar Union Leader (1979)
• Labour in Power: The Labour Party and Governments in Queensland (1980)
• Hayden: A Political Biography (1980)
• The Big Strikes: Queensland 1889-1965 (1983)

A lecture series in honour of Murphy was established. Lectures in the series have included the following:

1991: John Kerin MP, Treasurer. 30 August.
1992: Peter Beattie, MLA, Member for Brisbane Central. A reformist party in government: the courage needed for reform. 14 November.
1993: Barry Jones, former Labor MP. The agenda for the 1990s. 31 July.

2014: 24th Lecture. Anthony Albanese, M.P., former cabinet minister. Denis Murphy and the power of communities, 8 November.
2015: 25th Lecture. Douglas Cameron, Senator for NSW, 22 August.
2016: 26th Lecture. Sam Dastyari, Senator for NSW.
2017: Linda Burney, MP. 21 October.

• D.J. Murphy, 1975, T.J. Ryan: a political biography, St Lucia, Brisbane: University of Queensland Press.
• Denis Murphy, 1980, Hayden: a political biography, Sydney: Angus and Robertson.
• Bradley Bowden, 2016, "Denis Murphy, the University of Queensland and Labour History, 1966-83, A Reassessment," Labour History, No 110 (May 2016), pp. 125–142.

• Denis Murphy display at the University of Queensland Library