He was a member of the Australian Labor Party (ALP) and served in the House of Representatives from 1940 to 1948.

He left school at a young age and began working as a shearer in the Murchison, Gascoyne and North-West.

On the death of John Curtin in July 1945, he was elected by the parliamentary caucus to the ensuing vacancy in the ministry and he was appointed Minister for the Interior—which among other things was responsible for northern development—and Assistant-Minister for Works and Housing from 1945 to 1946.

A departmental memorandum stated that desegregation of the union would make it more difficult to enforce the Aborigines Ordinance 1918.

He died in 1962 at Royal Perth Hospital, survived by his wife, two of his three sons and three of his four daughters.