H. V. Evatt

H. V. Evatt   (politician)
Born	30 April 1894 Colony of New South Wales
Died	2 November 1965 (Age 71) Australian Capital Territory
Nationality	Australian
Alma mater	University of Sydney
Party	Australian Labor Party
Australian Minister for External Affairs from 1941 to 1949  Chief Justice of New South Wales In office 15 February 1960 - 24 October 1962  Australia/Leader of the Opposition  In office 20 June 1951 - 9 February 1960  Leader of the Australian Labor Party In office 20 June 1951 - 9 February 1960  Attorney-General for Australia In office 7 October 1941 - 19 December 1949  Australia/Minister for External Affairs In office In office 7 October 1941 - 19 December 1949 Preceded by Julie Bishop, Bob Carr, Richard Casey, Alexander Downer, Gareth Evans, H. V. Evatt, Bill Hayden, William McMahon, Kevin Rudd, Gough Whitlam"strong class="error">Error: Invalid time." contains an extrinsic dash or other characters that are invalid for a date interpretation.  President of the United Nations General Assembly  In office 1948 - 1949  Member of the Australian Parliament for Barton In office 21 September 1940 - 22 November 1958 Preceded by Harold Thorby Succeeded by H. V. Evatt  Member of the Australian Parliament for Hunter In office 22 November 1958 - 10 February 1960 Preceded by H. V. Evatt  Justice of the High Court of Australia In office 19 December 1930 - 2 September 1940 Appointed by James Scullin

Herbert Vere Evatt was an Australian politician and judge.

He was a judge of the High Court of Australia from 1930 to 1940, Attorney-General and Minister for External Affairs from 1941 to 1949, and leader of the Australian Labor Party (ALP) and Leader of the Opposition from 1951 to 1960.

Evatt was born in East Maitland, New South Wales, and grew up on Sydney's North Shore. He studied law at the University of Sydney, attaining the degree of Doctor of Laws (LL.D.) in 1924. After a period in the New South Wales Legislative Assembly (1925–1930), Evatt was appointed to the High Court in 1930 by the Scullin Government. He was 36 years old, and remains the youngest appointee in the court's history. He was considered an innovative judge, but left the court to seek election to federal parliament at the 1940 federal election.

In 1941, the ALP returned to government under Prime Minister John Curtin. Evatt was appointed Attorney-General and Minister for External Affairs, positions he held under Curtin and Ben Chifley until the government's defeat at the 1949 federal election. He was President of the United Nations General Assembly from 1948 to 1949, and helped to draft the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. After Chifley's death in 1951, Evatt was elected as his successor as ALP leader. Internal tensions over the party's attitude to communism during the Cold War culminated in a party split in 1955. The ALP was defeated at three consecutive federal elections under Evatt's leadership, in 1954, 1955 and 1958. He faced three leadership challenges before being convinced to retire from politics in 1960 and accept the post of Chief Justice of New South Wales.

“We must be aware of setting up a security organization which has political views, and which regards the left-wing man who goes too far to the left, as being a criminal. We must prevent any attempt to set up an espionage system for spying on our own people. The security service was never intended to be a secret police organization. Now it wants to run the police of Canberra and everything else, and it is only kept from doing so by public opinion.”
H. V. Evatt (19 October, 1955) 

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