After entering federal politics, Connor became an ally of Gough Whitlam, who appointed him to cabinet when Labor won the 1972 election.

[1] Connor attended Wollongong High School, of which he graduated as dux despite contracting pneumonia in his final year.

He initially intended to pursue a career in analytical chemistry, but after his father's death in 1925 he entered the workforce to support his family.

[1] During the Great Depression, Connor established a successful car dealership and employed up to ten staff members.

He "frequently clashed with the police over traffic and licensing matters" and was twice convicted of assault – in 1935 for pulling out a ladder from a council employee disconnecting his electricity and in 1938 for striking a customer who complained about the price of a car.

After an incident in which he ripped a clock off a wall in Parliament House and threw it across the room in a rage, he was unofficially known as "The Strangler".

He liked to recite a piece of poetry by Sam Walter Foss: Connor's economic nationalism was popular with the Labor rank-and-file, and the 1973 oil crisis seemed to many to be a vindication of his views.

The Opposition proclaimed the Loans Affair a "reprehensible circumstance", which justified the blocking of supply in the Senate, leading to the dismissal of the Whitlam government a few weeks later by Governor-General, Sir John Kerr.

[1][3] The journalist Paul Kelly wrote in his book November 1975: "It was the national interest that drove Rex Connor.

"[4] Nevertheless, by the time Labor returned to office in 1983, Connor's economic nationalism and dreams of massive state investment in energy projects had been totally rejected.