Former
Speakers

William Slater
1890-1960
Speaker: 1940-1942
Legislative Assembly: 1917-1947
Legislative Council: 1949-1960

William Slater followed the precedent set by a number of his immediate predecessors by serving a term as Speaker in the middle of his parliamentary career.

He was born in New South Wales and moved to Victoria in 1892, after the death of his father. He worked first as an office boy and then as a law clerk in Mildura in 1912, where he joined the Australian Labor Party, and was actually elected to the Legislative Assembly seat of Dundas in 1917 while he was a stretcher-bearer in the Australian Imperial Force in France.

On his return to Victoria, Slater continued his legal career and his parliamentary career simultaneously. He worked as managing law clerk for Maurice Blackburn (q.v.) in 1919-22, was admitted to practice as a solicitor in 1922, went into partnership with Blackburn in 1923-24 and eventually established his own practice in Melbourne and Hamilton. In 1923 he married Mary Gordon. In the parliamentary sphere he was attorney-general and solicitor-general in 1924, 1927-28 and 1929-32, and minister of agriculture in 1927-28 and 1929-32. He was the chief president of the Australian Natives' Association in 1926 and president of the Law Institute of Victoria in 1928-29.

In 1932 he was defeated in Dundas, but then declared elected on a recount. He did not hold office during the rest of the 1930s, but in 1940 he was elected Speaker. In 1942 he resigned from the position, but not from parliament, to become Australia's Minister to the Soviet Union.

In 1943 he returned to the ministry as attorney-general, solicitor-general and minister in charge of electrical undertakings in the first Cain Ministry.

He was also chief secretary, attorney-general and solicitor-general in the second Cain ministry, in 1943-47. In 1947 he lost the seat of Dundas, but was elected to the Legislative Council for Doutta Galla in 1949. Slater served in both Cain ministries of the 1950s: as attorney-general, minister in charge of prices and minister in charge of immigration in 1952-55, and as attorney-general and minister in charge of immigration in 1955. He was still a member of the Legislative Council when he died at South Melbourne in 1960.