Cleaver Bunton
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Cleaver Bunton AO OBE (5 May 1902 - 20 January 1999) was a long serving public official in Albury, New South Wales who shot to prominence in 1975 when he was controversially appointed to the Australian Senate.
Born in Albury, Bunton left school at 13 and initially worked as a clerk in a solicitor's office before becoming an accountant. He also was involved in Albury sporting and community affairs, playing Australian rules football with the Albury Football Club, becoming captain-coach and club secretary at 17. His younger brother Haydn Bunton went on to become a notable Australian rules footballer.
In 1930 Bunton was elected president of the Ovens and Murray Football League (a position he held until 1969). He also held administrative roles in the Victorian Country Football League, the West Albury Tennis Club and a range of other community groups and organisations.
In recognition of his role in Albury, Bunton was encouraged to run for a position on the Albury Municipal Council, and was elected in 1925 at the age of 22, the youngest person ever elected to a council to that time. After initially retiring in 1931, he returned to the council in 1937, elected Mayor of Albury in 1945 and served as such (with a few minor breaks) until August 1976. Bunton was also a regional radio commentator, commenting on sport and reading the news bulletins. In 1930 he married Eileen O'Malley.
Bunton would have remained an uncontroversial hardworking local administrator but for the retirement of Australian Labor Party Senator Lionel Murphy in 1975. Tradition dictated that the New South Wales government appoint someone selected by the Labor Party to replace Murphy but the Liberal Party Premier, Tom Lewis, defied this tradition and instead appointed Bunton on 27 February 1975. Facing a hostile Labor Party (and sometime hostile electorate), Bunton surprised many observers by acting as an independent rather than a Liberal appointee and resisted urgings from the Malcolm Fraser-led Opposition to block the supply bill of Prime Minister Gough Whitlam's Government. Bunton was therefore not directly responsible for the constitutional crisis that occurred when Governor-General John Kerr dismissed Whitlam. Bunton lost his Senate position at the ensuing elections.
For his services, Bunton was made an Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in 1954, an Officer in the Order of Australia (AO) in 1975, a member of the Ovens and Murray League Hall Of Fame, as well as receiving an honorary degree from Charles Sturt University and having a street in Albury, a chrysanthemum and a ward in the Albury Base Hospital named in his honour. In recognition of his years of service to his home city, Bunton was occasionally known by the sobriquet `Mr Albury'.
References
- Goodbye Mr Albury, Herald Sun, Melbourne. 4 February 1999.
- [Hansard Senate 15 February 1999, see pp 1858 onwards]
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