Stan Keon

Who was Stan Keon?

Standish Michael "Stan" Keon was an Australian politician who represented the Australian Labor Party in the Federal Parliament from 1949 to 1955, having served previously in the State Parliament of Victoria.

Keon's November 1945 election to the electoral district of Richmond in the Victorian Parliament followed a bitter pre-selection contest between supporters of the political machine of John Wren on the one hand, and the Catholic Social Studies Movement of B.A. Santamaria on the other. He went on to be one of the founders of the Democratic Labor Party.

Keon won the House of Representatives seat of Yarra at the 1949 federal election, succeeding former Prime Minister James Scullin.

An effective, often abrasive, performer inside and outside parliament, Keon was widely seen as a future Prime Minister. In 1955, he and six other Victorian federal members were expelled from the Labor Party as part of the split in the party caused by the controversy surrounding the role of Industrial Groups within the ALP.

In April 1955, the seven expelled members established the Australian Labor Party, which was renamed the Democratic Labor Party in 1957. All the defectors lost their seats at the subsequent 1955 federal election. Keon was narrowly defeated in Yarra by the Labor candidate, Jim Cairns, and his four subsequent attempts to vanquish Cairns at succeeding federal elections were unsuccessful. He eventually had a spectacular falling-out with his erstwhile ally B. A. Santamaria.