Jim Balfour

James Charles Murray "Jim" Balfour CBE (30 September 1914 – 19 May 1990) was a long-serving senior Australian politician in the Legislative Assembly, in the State Parliament of Victoria.

Born in the inner Melbourne suburb of Windsor to The Hon James Miller Balfour MLC and Katrine Elizabeth Alice Murray, Balfour was educated at Geelong College. He went on to become a dairy farmer, settling at Willow Grove near Trafalgar in the Latrobe Valley of Gippsland. On 6 February 1937 he married Mary Emma Savige, with whom he had five sons.

From 1946 to 1967, Balfour served on Narracan Shire Council (including terms as President from 1946 to 1947, 1950 to 1951 and 1960 to 1961). In 1955, he was also elected to the Victorian Legislative Assembly for Morwell, representing the Liberal Party. From 1958 to 1961 he was Government Whip, and from 1961 to 1964 Cabinet Secretary. In 1964, he entered the Ministry as Minister of Water Supply and Mines, a portfolio that was reorganised to become Lands, Soldier Settlement and Conservation a few months later. In 1967, he moved to the new seat of Narracan and became Minister of Fuel and Power and of Mines. In 1977 he moved to the Minerals and Energy portfolio, from which he resigned in 1981, the year he also received the CBE.

Balfour retired from politics in 1982, and was subsequently involved in the regional TAFE program. He died in 1990.^[1]

References