Denis Lovegrove

Denis (Dinny) Lovegrove (25 September 1904 – 25 January 1979) was an Australian politician.

He was born in Carlton and held a variety of jobs including brass foundry worker, shipping office clerk and plasterer. In 1930 he joined the Communist Party of Australia, but he was expelled in 1933 and subsequently beaten for criticising the party. He then joined the Australian Labor Party and served on its state executive from 1938 to 1955 (president from 1943 to 1944). He was also federal president of the ALP from 1953 to 1954. He was secretary of the Fibrous Plaster and Plaster Workers' Union (FPPWU) from 1935 to 1947, president of the Trades Hall Council in 1938, and a delegate to the Australian Council of Trade Unions. Until 1954, he was associated with the hardline anti-communist Industrial Groups. He was elected to the Victorian Legislative Assembly in 1955 as the member for Carlton, transferring to Fitzroy in 1958. He was also president of the FPPWU from 1955 to 1978. From 1958 to 1967 he was Deputy Leader of the Opposition. He moved to the new seat of Sunshine in 1967, and retired in 1973. Lovegrove died at East Melbourne in 1979.^[1]

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