Adrian Bennett

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title: "Adrian Bennett" type: doc version: 1 created: 2026-02-28 author: "Wikipedia contributors" status: active scope: public tags: ["australian-labor-party-members-of-the-parliament-of-australia", "members-of-the-australian-house-of-representatives-for-swan", "members-of-the-australian-house-of-representatives", "trade-unionists-from-perth,-western-australia", "1933-births", "2006-deaths", "larouche-movement", "australian-mps-1969–1972", "australian-mps-1972–1974", "australian-mps-1974–1975"] description: "Australian politician (1933–2006)" topic_path: "geography/australia" source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adrian_Bennett" license: "CC BY-SA 4.0" wikipedia_page_id: 0 wikipedia_revision_id: 0

::summary Australian politician (1933–2006) ::

::data[format=table title="Infobox officeholder"]

Field	Value
name	Adrian Bennett
image	Adrian Bennett 1973.jpg
constituency_MP	Swan
parliament	Australian
predecessor	Richard Cleaver
successor	John Martyr
term_start	25 October 1969
term_end	13 December 1975
birth_date
birth_place	Perth, Western Australia
death_date
party	Labor
Curtin Labor Alliance (from 2000)
occupation	Transport worker
::

| honorific-prefix = | name = Adrian Bennett | honorific-suffix = | image = Adrian Bennett 1973.jpg | constituency_MP = Swan | parliament = Australian | majority = | predecessor = Richard Cleaver | successor = John Martyr | term_start = 25 October 1969 | term_end = 13 December 1975 | birth_date = | birth_place = Perth, Western Australia | death_date = | death_place = | spouse = | party = Labor Curtin Labor Alliance (from 2000) | otherparty = | relations = | children = | residence = | alma_mater = | occupation = Transport worker | profession = | religion = | signature = | website = | footnotes = Adrian Frank Bennett (21 January 1933 – 9 May 2006) was an Australian politician. He was a member of the House of Representatives from 1969 to 1975, holding the Western Australian seat of Swan for the Australian Labor Party (ALP). In later life he was associated with the LaRouche movement and helped establish the Curtin Labor Alliance.

Early life

Bennett was born in Perth on 21 January 1933. He was educated at Catholic schools before becoming a transport worker. He was state secretary of the Transport Workers' Union and also sat on the Canning Shire Council, including as deputy president for a period. In 1969 he was said by The Canberra Times to be "heavily involved in youth work and with parents and citizens' associations".

Politics

Federal parliament

::figure[src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/ed/Adrian_Bennett_1970.jpg" caption="Bennett in 1970"] ::

A delegate to the ALP state executive, Bennett was elected to the House of Representatives at the 1969 federal election, defeating the incumbent Liberal Party member Richard Cleaver in the seat of Swan. His victory reportedly "surprised himself and most political observers".

Bennett defeated Cleaver in a rematch at the 1972 election. In parliament he spoke against the racial segregation of ex-servicemen's clubs in the Territory of Papua New Guinea. He also signed petitions supporting Australian recognition of the Provisional Revolutionary Government of the Republic of South Vietnam and supporting the Builders Labourers Federation's green bans.

Later activities

In 1976, Bennett was president of the Association for the Abolition of the Means Test, which sought to remove the means test for the aged pension. He and his supporters drove a double-decker bus from Perth to Melbourne and Adelaide to collect signatures on a petition and organise local committees.

In later life, Bennett was the secretary of the Municipal Employees Union of Western Australia (MEU), an organisation associated with the LaRouche movement. In 2000, he became the inaugural chairman of the Curtin Labor Alliance, a LaRouchite political party formed as a joint venture of the MEU and the Citizens Electoral Council. In a speech to its inaugural conference, Bennett predicted an imminent global financial collapse and stated that the "new party will change the course of this nation in the very near future". He described Lyndon LaRouche as the "world's leading economist" and attributed the LaRouche criminal trials to a conspiracy by the "global oligarchy". He further stated that the dismissal of the Whitlam government had been engineered by the British government and that the subsequent Hawke and Keating governments were controlled by the oligarchy.

Bennett was an unsuccessful candidate for the Curtin Labor Alliance at the 2001 Western Australian state election and 2001 Australian Senate election.

References

References

1. Carr, Adam. (2008). "Australian Election Archive". Psephos, Adam Carr's Election Archive.
2. Thomas, Athol. (17 October 1969). "Yet another test for a veteran campaigner". The Canberra Times.
3. (22 November 1972). "Swan, WA". The Canberra Times.
4. (20 February 1975). "How the West is Won". The Canberra Times.
5. (5 November 1971). "It's the same argument all over again". Papua New Guinea Post-Courier.
6. (19 November 1974). "Federal M.P.s form P.R.G. recognition group". Tribune.
7. (29 October 1974). "Labor MPs back BLF green bans". Tribune.
8. (14 June 1976). "Photograph". The Canberra Times.
9. Douglas, Allen. (12 May 2000). "New Leadership for a Time of Crisis: Australia's Curtin Labor Alliance". [[Executive Intelligence Review]].
10. (2003). "Realising Democracy: Electoral Law in Australia". Federation Press.

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