Australian Dictionary of Biography

Ned McGrath, no date

Courtesy of the family

Edmund Hudson McGrath (1920–2000), public servant and trade unionist, was born on 1 September 1920 at Paddington, Sydney, only child of Joseph McGrath, postal worker, and his wife Trilby Lilian, née Brook, both New South Wales born. Life was hard for Ned growing up during the Depression, especially when his father was out of work. As was common amongst working-class Catholics, Joseph and Trilby were staunch supporters of the Australian Labor Party (ALP). Their son followed them by joining the party aged sixteen.

McGrath attended Christian Brothers’ College, Paddington, and then Marist Brothers’ High School, Darlinghurst. At school, he displayed a talent for writing, and occasionally had short stories and poems published in the press. He graduated from high school in 1938 and was awarded a public exhibition. The following year he commenced law studies at the University of Sydney (LLB, 1945). Being acutely aware of the benefits of job security he chose to study part time, and in April 1939 joined the Commonwealth Public Service as a clerk in the taxation branch of the Department of the Treasury in Sydney. On 6 March 1943 he married Elizabeth (Betty) Ann Costello, a telephonist, at St Michael’s Church, Stanmore. At university he embraced student life, being active in the Law Society and becoming the faculty of law representative on the Students’ Representative Council (1943–44). In the emerging Cold War, he campaigned in cooperation with the ALP Industrial Groups against communist influence on campus.

Slim, sociable, and with penetrating green eyes, McGrath’s rise through the taxation bureaucracy was meteoric, contributing to his later being described by the Canberra Times public service reporter as ‘a man of exceptional talents, both as an administrator and a commanding demagogue’ (Juddery 1980, 147). In 1947, at the tender age of twenty-six, he was appointed a chief prosecutor. His approach was unrelenting but strictly impartial: among those he brought before the courts were a Labor State parliamentarian who had failed to lodge tax returns, a deputy lord mayor of Sydney, and a certified accountant who happened also to be secretary of the New South Wales Taxpayers’ Association. In addition McGrath established himself in the public servants’ union, the Commonwealth Public Service Clerical Association (CPSCA), which he had joined in 1939. He was a delegate to the union’s branch council from 1940, and to its interstate conference from 1947. In November 1949 he became State branch president, and that same year established and began editing the union’s monthly journal White Collar.

McGrath ventured into the minefield of local government as an alderman and deputy mayor on Fairfield Council from December 1950 until his resignation three years later amid factional turmoil that included a split in the local ALP. He sought preselection for the 1952 by-election for the House of Representatives seat of Werriwa. In a strong field of candidates, his old university classmate Edward Gough Whitlam emerged the winner.

As an irreverent and outspoken critic of public service administration in the CPSCA’s Federal Public Service Journal, McGrath raised the ire of the Public Service Board and occasionally annoyed upper echelons of the union. His satirical ‘horrorscope for 1952’ predicted that ‘the taxation system will be simplified and five hundred more staff will be appointed to deal with the simplified system’ (Federal Public Service Journal 1952, 9). Nevertheless, he became CPSCA general president in March 1953. After a fractious few years of conflict with the union’s general secretary, George Smith, the combative McGrath stepped down in April 1957 from the presidency of what had been renamed the Administrative and Clerical Officers’ Association (ACOA) but remained on its executive council. He resigned as New South Wales branch president in 1960.

In October that year McGrath became New South Wales regional director of war service homes, and in May 1969 appointment as commissioner for housing in the Australian Capital Territory (ACT) took him to Canberra. In April 1973 he became a first assistant secretary in the Department of the Capital Territory. He objected strongly to the recommendation of the Coombs royal commission on Australian government administration (1973–76) to abolish the public service’s hierarchy of staffing classification as likely to ‘destroy our career structure and jeopardise our promotion prospects’ (Juddery 1976, 2). This led to his contesting the ACOA ACT branch election in 1976 as a candidate for its right-wing faction, without success.

ACOA discontent with government policy had made it commonplace by this time for public servants to resort to industrial action to defend their pay and conditions. McGrath was never comfortable with this, and announced his resignation from the ACOA in February 1981 after members went on a national strike when the government disallowed an Australian Conciliation and Arbitration Commission decision setting out safeguards for public servants who had been made redundant. For the remainder of his career, he contented himself with his official role in the department, overseeing the introduction of poker machines to the ACT and presiding over the local Totalizater Agency Board. He restricted his union activities to the Second Division Officers’ Association (SDOA), speaking out on integrity issues such as nepotism and political appointments.

In September 1984 McGrath retired to care for his ailing wife, who passed away three years later. By continuing to work on behalf of the SDOA and its successors he maintained his vision of a service in which ‘public servants are not mere vassals of their Minister’ but rather ‘trustees of public interests’ whose ‘fearless devotion to duty and scrupulous adherence to ethics are integral to the maintenance of real democratic standards’ (McGrath 1997). On 10 December 2000 he died in Canberra, survived by his three children, Robyn, Antony, and Evelyn, and was cremated.