Remembering Don Dunstan

Born in Suva, Fiji, on 21 September 1926 Don Dunstan entered the South Australian Parliament as the member for Norwood in 1953, following a career in law. 

A South Australian Premier with Style

Don Dunstan is perhaps South Australia's best known politician. Premier of South Australia from 1967-68 and 1970-79, much has been written about his fashion choices, but his trail-blazing time in Parliament was notable for far more than his pink shorts. Dunstan led significant reforms, including in the areas of sex discrimination, Aboriginal land rights and consumer protection. He was a passionate advocate for social justice, arts, and education. Drinking laws were relaxed, protections were introduced in labour laws and welfare. Homosexuality, sex acts between consenting men over 21 years old, was decriminalised in 1975. 

An Era of Reform

The 1960s and '70s were a time of great social and political change, in South Australia as elsewhere. In 1968 the Women’s Liberation Movement formed in South Australia with members coming out of the University of Adelaide.  In May 1970 an estimated 200,000 Australians took part in the first Vietnam Moratorium marches around the nation. In in 1972 South Australia lowered the voting age from 21 to 18. 

The Shorts

Something of the flamboyance of Premier Dunstan was expressed by his appearance in the South Australian Parliament in pink shorts on 22 November 1972. The News reported ‘dazzling Don Dunstan has done it again’, and that, in his shorts, white T-shirt, long socks and brown shoes, ‘South Australia’s swinging Premier stood out like a beacon in the grey conservative décor of Parliament House’.

While members of his government paid little attention, Dunstan’s original point about individuality and casual dress was somewhat lost when the press made it a national, and international, story. Nonetheless one of Dunstan's many reforms was to relax the dress code for parliament, so that the suit and tie was no longer seen as obligatory.

The colourful legacy left to South Australia by Don Dunstan lives on in a variety of ways, including through the Don Dunstan Foundation established before his death. Dunstan remains one of South Australia’s best remembered politicians locally, and nationally.