Bert Lazzarini


Hubert Peter Lazzarini was an Australian politician. He was a member of the Australian Labor Party and represented the Division of Werriwa in the House of Representatives for over 30 years. After the ALP split of 1931 he joined the Lang Labor faction, which was reunited with the official ALP in 1936. In the 1940s Lazzarini held ministerial office in the Curtin and Chifley Governments, serving as Minister for Home Security, Works, and Department of Works and Housing.

Early life

Lazzarini was born on 8 September 1884 in Young, New South Wales. He was the son of Annie and Pietro Lazzarini; his older brother Carlo also entered politics. Their mother was an Australian, while their father was born in Italy and came to Australia via the United States.
Lazzarini was educated at a Catholic school in Young. Before entering politics he worked as a draper, initially at Holbrook and later at his own business in Wellington. He married Constance Williams in 1916, with whom he had a son and two daughters. In 1919 he moved to the Sydney suburb of Dulwich Hill.

Politics

Lazzarini won the seat of Werriwa in the 1919 election, when it was a rural electorate that included the Southern Highlands, Goulburn and part of the South West Slopes, including Young. He won re-election at the 1922, 1925, 1928 and 1929 elections when Werriwa had moved eastward to include the Illawarra and Sutherland Shire, but had lost the South West Slopes and some of the Southern Highlands. He was a part of break-away Lang Labor from 1931 to 1936. He lost the seat at the 1931 election and regained it at the 1934 election, when it included the Sydney suburb of Liverpool—which was then semi-rural—for the first time and had lost Goulburn. He was Minister for Home Security and Minister assisting the Treasurer in John Curtin's first and second ministry and Minister for Works and Housing in Ben Chifley's first ministry. The Chifley government was defeated at the 1949, but Lazzarini was re-elected for Werriwa, which had been redistributed to lose the llawarra.
Lazzarini died of cerebral haemorrhage in the Sydney suburb of Fairfield, survived by his wife, son and two daughters. Gough Whitlam succeeded him in the seat of Werriwa at the 1952 by-election.
Carlo Lazzarini is Hubert's brother and was also a member of parliament, and died one month after Hubert.