Scholes was born in Melbourne, the son of Thomas Glen Denton Scholes and his wife Mary Louisa O'Brien. He was the Victorian Amateur Heavyweight Boxing Champion in 1949. He joined the Australian Labor Party in 1955 and was President of the Geelong ALP Branch from 1962 to 1964. He was President of the Geelong Trades Hall Council from 1965 to 1966, and a councillor of the Geelong City Council from 1965 to 1967.
Parliament
Scholes was the Labor Party candidate in the Division of Corio, centred on Geelong, in the 1966 election, and was defeated by incumbent Liberal Sir Hubert Opperman. However, Opperman resigned a few months after the election to become Australia's first High Commissioner to Malta. Scholes won the seat at the ensuing by-election on a swing of 11 percent. He won the seat in his own right at the 1969 election.
Scholes served as Speaker from 27 February 1975 until 16 February 1976, a period taken up almost entirely by the 1975 Australian constitutional crisis. On 11 November 1975, following the dismissal of the Prime Minister, Gough Whitlam, by the Governor-General, Sir John Kerr, and the appointment by Kerr of the Leader of the Opposition, Malcolm Fraser, as caretaker Prime Minister, the House of Representatives passed a motion of no confidence in the Fraser government, by 10 votes. The no confidence motion also called on the Governor-General to reinstate the Whitlam government. As Speaker, Scholes was charged with conveying that resolution of the House to the Governor-General and to request Kerr to dismiss Fraser and re-appoint Whitlam. Kerr refused to see the Speaker or to recognise the motion of no confidence in the Fraser government by the House of Representatives, keeping Scholes waiting for more than an hour. By the time the Governor-General agreed to see Scholes, Kerr had already dissolved the Parliament on Fraser's advice, which was something Fraser had undertaken to do once he had secured passage of the Supply bills through the Senate. Scholes later accused Kerr of bad faith for making an appointment to receive the Speaker shortly after 3pm, and then not waiting to hear from him before dissolving Parliament more than an hour later, with the appointed Prime Minister Malcolm Fraser still as Prime Minister, without the confidence of the House of Representatives.
Government minister
Scholes was Minister for Defence in the first Hawke Ministry from March 1983 to December 1984 and then Minister for Territories until July 1987. He retired before the 1993 election.
