Jim Cairns

James Ford Cairns (4 October 1914 – 12 October 2003) was an Australian politician who was prominent in the Labor movement through the 1960s and 1970s, and was briefly Treasurer and the fourth deputy prime minister of Australia, both in the Whitlam government. He is best remembered as a leader of the movement against Australian involvement in the Vietnam War, for his affair with Junie Morosi, and for his later renunciation of conventional politics. He was also an economist, and a prolific writer on economic and social issues. Many of his books were self-published, and self-marketed at stalls he ran across Australia.

Early days

James Ford Cairns was born in Carlton, then a working-class suburb of Melbourne, the son of a clerk. He grew up on a dairy farm north of Sunbury. His father went to World War I as a lieutenant in the Australian Imperial Force, but became disillusioned with the war and lost his respect for Britain. Following the war, he did not return to Australia and essentially deserted his family. He travelled to Africa where he committed suicide after a stay of six or seven years.

Many years later, Cairns told Gough Whitlam that he had long believed his father had been killed in World War I, but that he was eventually told the truth of his father's desertion.