He left school at the age of 13 and began working for Bennett & Wood, a bicycle manufacturing firm, as a messenger boy and clerk.

He rapidly established himself as a skilled and witty debater, and became a protégé of Ben Chifley, Labor Prime Minister from 1945.

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.

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".

But his support for retaining some elements of the White Australia Policy in Labor's platform caused Whitlam to remove him from the portfolio.

[3] After the Whitlam government was dismissed by the Governor-General, Sir John Kerr in November 1975, Daly announced he would retire from parliament and not contest the December election.