He was educated at St Joseph's Christian Brothers High School in Rozelle before being apprenticed to the Railways Department building carriages and wagons.
A carpenter, he became an executive member of the New South Wales Building Workers' Industrial Union; he joined the Labor Party in 1962.
[1] When the member for Balmain, John McMahon, retired at the 1968 state election, Degen was selected to replace him as Labor candidate.
[2] In 1980, he faced a motion of expulsion from parliament after an adverse finding against him by the Woodward Royal Commission into drug trafficking.
The motion was defeated on party lines and he continued to hold the seat without difficulty until his retirement in 1984.