Guide to the Papers of John Langmore, 1976-1996 (bulk 1984-1996)

Summary

Collection number:

MS 9939

Creator:

Langmore, John, 1939-

Extent:

(17 ms boxes + 1 small folio box)

Language:

English and English

Preferred citation:

Items from this collection should be cited as '[Title or description of manuscript item], Papers of John Langmore, National Library of Australia, MS 9939, [series and/or file number]'.

Availability:

Available

Access conditions:

Available for reference. Not for loan.

Background

Content Summary:

The John Langmore Papers consist largely of material collected by Langmore whilst he was the Member for Fraser in the House of Representatives between 1984 and 1996. They include: electorate office files; books, articles, addresses and reports written, co-authored or edited by Langmore; correspondence; media releases; research material; and parliamentary papers such as questions on notice and Hansard extracts. There is also a smaller amount of material dating from 1976-1984 when Langmore held the positions of parliamentary Labor Party Economic Advisor and Senior Private Secretary to the Minister for Employment and Industrial Relations.

Biographical Note:

John Vance Langmore was born in Berwick, Victoria, on 3 September 1939, the son of Leonard and Phoebe Langmore. Langmore attended Dandenong High School and Scotch College in Melbourne, and completed a Bachelor of Commerce degree and Diploma of Social Studies at University of Melbourne, a Master of Economics degree at Monash University and a Diploma of Development Economics at Cambridge. He married Diane Adcock in 1964 and they have three daughters.

Langmore was a lecturer in economics at the University of Papua New Guinea 1969-1973 and Assistant Director of the National Planning Office in PNG 1973-1976 in the lead-up to self-government and independence.

Langmore joined Gough Whitlam's parliamentary staff in 1976 as Economic Adviser, a position he held until 1983. After a short period as Senior Private Secretary to the Minister for Employment and Industrial Relations, Langmore won and retained the Commonwealth seat of Fraser ACT for the Labor Party from 1984 to 1996. He joined the ALP's Centre Left faction and served on the executive but later moved to the Left. He was considered a disruptive backbencher by senior Labor Party MPs due to his outspoken criticism of what he saw as a move away from the policies with which Labor had won the 1983 election. As Member for Fraser, Langmore advocated self-government for the ACT. He served on parliamentary committees on the ACT, Trade, ASIO, and Environment, Recreation and the Arts. At an international level he was a member of Parliamentarians Global Action for Disarmament, Development and World Reform and Multinational Parliamentarians Involved in Oversight of the IMF and the World Bank.

Langmore has written and been published widely both as an individual and as a parliamentarian. His main focus is on policy development in the areas of economics, the environment, PNG, town planning, social reform and the UN. A book, Work for all : full employment in the nineties, was co-authored with John Quiggin and published in 1994, and Dealing with America : the UN, the US and Australia, was published in 2005.

Langmore has been a member of many organisations, including the Australian Labor Party, The Royal Australian Institute of Public Administration, the Economic Society, the Industrial Relations Society, Amnesty International, the Industry Policy Unit, the Press Club, the International Council, the Society for International Development, the Oikumene (Oecumene) Foundation and the the Council of the National Library of Australia. He was also a founding board member of the Australia Institute, a Certified Practising Accountant and was an active member of the Anglican and Uniting Churches and the Parliamentary Christian Fellowship in Canberra.

In 1997 Langmore moved to New York to take up the post of Director of the Division for Social Development at the United Nations Secretariat. He was also the Representative of the International Labour Organization to the UN until 2003.

Clack, John. On his own terms, The Canberra Times, 18 August 1990, pp. PB1-3.

Langmore, John. Disengagement from the UN carries a high cost, The Canberra Times, 4 November 2004, p. 13.

Taylor, Lenore. The member for plain speaking, The Canberra Times, 18 May 1988, pp. 25 and 30.

Provenance:

The papers were donated to the Library by John Langmore in 1996.

Arrangement:

Amongst the papers was one carton of suspension files which was marked "Electorate office personal files". The arrangement of the papers inside these files has been maintained but the files themselves have been arranged in chronological order by the Library. The remainder of the papers when received were filed in manila files or were loose in cartons. For this material, a series arrangement reflecting Langmore's interests and activities has been imposed by the Library. Series 4, Economics, and Series 5, Other issues and interests, have been collated from different types of papers (ie correspondence, media releases, Hansard excerpts, articles) which were loose but contiguous when received, and relating to specific subjects. Series 2, Economic Adviser, has been brought together by the Library from manila files and loose papers which date from 1976-1984, when Langmore held the positions of Economic Adviser to the Leader of the Opposition, Economic Adviser to the Treasurer and Senior Private Secretary to the Minister for Employment and Industrial Relations.

Conditions Governing Access:

The collection is available for reference.

Conditions Governing Use:

Copying and publishing of unpublished manuscript material is subject to copyright restrictions. For such material, written permission to publish must be obtained from the copyright holder(s). Copying of unpublished material for research purposes is permissible 50 years after the death of the creator of the material.

Preferred citation:

Items from this collection should be cited as '[Title or description of manuscript item], Papers of John Langmore, National Library of Australia, MS 9939, [series and/or file number]'.

Location of this collection:

National Library of Australia

Parkes Place

Canberra ACT 2600, Australia

Contact:

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