Tom Uren

A Labor Party colossus Tom Uren died on Australia Day.

Tom Uren left school at 13, became a boxer, was fighting World War II in Timor on his 21st birthday, spent his next three birthdays as a prisoner of the Japanese, including on the infamous Burma-Thailand railway, and saw the sky change colour over Nagasaki after the atom bomb was dropped.

Uren was a leading figure in the Australian anti-war movement. In 1960, he revisited Japan as part of a peace initiative. He urged in 1968 that trade with Asia be expanded: "Trade and goodwill are our frontline of defence."

He was the first Labor MP to question support for US intervention in Vietnam, in August 1962. He was jailed in 1971 for refusing to pay a fine over a Vietnam march protest and again for protesting against Queensland Premier Joh Bjelke-Petersen's ban on street marches. He led a delegation to Iraq seeking to have the hostages held by Saddam Hussein released prior to the first Gulf War.

He was a Minister in the Whitlam and Hawke governments.