In 1939, Cameron married Ruby Krahe (always called "Cherie") with whom he had three children (twins Warren and Tania, and a second son Noel).

[1] Cameron was the most powerful figure in the South Australian labour movement in the years immediately after World War II.

By the 1960s, Cameron realised Labor would never win a federal election again unless it could find both a leader and a set of policies acceptable to an increasingly middle-class electorate.

The younger leftist leaders such as Cameron, Jim Cairns and Tom Uren were sober enough to adapt to the changed circumstances.

He created a sensation by dismissing the permanent head of his department, Sir Halford Cook and bringing in an outsider; he was always deeply suspicious of senior public servants.

Revealing himself to be an unsuspected feminist, he hired Mary Gaudron (later the first woman on the High Court bench) to argue before the Arbitration Commission for equal pay for women workers.

At the same time, he became increasingly critical of the more irresponsible union leaders, who, he believed, blindly pursued wage rises without regard to the state of the economy or to the incomes policy of their own Labor government.

Still, in the twelve months from September 1973, Cameron claimed to have presided over "the greatest redistribution in the favour of wage earners ever to be recorded in any one year by any country in the world.

Cameron refused to resign as Labour and Immigration Minister, and Whitlam was forced to ask the Governor-General, Sir John Kerr, to withdraw his commission.

Well into his last years, he remained a frequent contributor to public debate, uttering various remarks showing a surprisingly respectful attitude towards his contemporary and former antagonist B.

The two men never met, but when Santamaria died in 1998, Cameron (as reported by the Santamaria-founded magazine News Weekly) paid him a warm tribute by saying that "his soul was not for sale."

Inspired by his marathon interview with Ashforth, Cameron contacted Santamaria and the two sat for dozens of hours of taped discussions.