Frederick Michael Daly (13 June 1912 – 2 August 1995) was an Australian politician who served as a member of the House of Representatives from 1943 to 1975, representing the Labor Party. In the Whitlam Government he was Leader of the House, Minister for Services and Property, and Minister for Administrative Services. Early life Daly was born on 13 June 1912 in Currabubula, New South Wales. He was the ninth of eleven children born to Margaret Jane (née Howard) and Michael Daly. His father, born in Ireland, was a farmer and grazier. Daly grew up on his family's farming property of . After his father's death in 1923 the property was sold and the family moved to Sydney and settled in North Bondi. He attended Waverley College, where he "hated school and failed most of his examinations". He left school at the age of 13 and began working for Bennett & Wood, a bicycle manufacturing firm, as a messenger boy and clerk. During World War II Daly worked for the Department of Navy under the orders of the Manpower Directorate. He was an official in the New South Wales branch of the Federated Clerks' Union of Australia. Politics At the 1943 election he was endorsed by the Labor Party for the seat of Martin in the Inner West of Sydney. This was considered a safe United Australia Party seat but Daly unexpectedly won. He rapidly established himself as a skilled and witty debater, and became a protégé of Ben Chifley, Labor Prime Minister from 1945. Labor was defeated at the 1949 election, at which Daly shifted to the safe Labor seat of Grayndler. Daly spent the next 23 years as an opposition frontbencher – one of a generation of Labor politicians whose career opportunities were greatly reduced by the splits and internal conflicts of the 1950s and 1960s. As a right-wing Catholic, Daly had many sympathies with the right-wing group which left the Labor Party in 1955 and later formed the Democratic Labor Party, but he remained loyal to the party and defeated several attempts by the left to challenge his party endorsement. Daly became well known as one of the great humorists of the House. Among his well-known lines were: "The Country Party has two election policies – one for people and one for sheep", and "He (Billy Snedden) couldn't lead a flock of homing pigeons". Whitlam Era From