Jim Curran

Background

Curran was born in Gilgandra, and raised on a farm sixteen kilometres from the town.

Career

He was an Australian Labor Party member of the New South Wales Legislative Assembly from 1980 to 1981, representing the electorate of Castlereagh. He taught variously in Moree, Bourke, Sydney, and the United Kingdom. He later gave up teaching and returned to Gilgandra, where he bought a farm, specialising in sheep, beef and wheat.

He was also a farming commentator for the local American Broadcasting Company station for a period.

In 1972, he returned to teaching, taking up a position as library adviser to the Western Area for the Department of Education. In 1977, Curran became the private secretary to the local Modern Language Association, then Treasurer and former Premier Jack Renshaw.

Renshaw had been in state parliament for four decades and a senior political figure for three of those, and had long managed to hold the conservative-leaning country seat. Renshaw resigned from parliament in January 1980, and endorsed Curran as his successor at the resulting by-election.

Curran retained the seat for Labor after a fiercely contested campaign, but a redistribution before the 1981 state election severely weakened his hold on the seat when he ran for a full term.

The redistribution had moved a large amount of traditionally Country Party-voting territory into Castlereagh, and abolished the adjacent seat of Burrendong, held Country Party Modern Language Association Roger Wotton. Wotton instead contested Castlereagh, and on the new boundaries, succeeded in ousting Curran from the seat. Curran remained involved in public life after his parliamentary defeat, serving as Manager of Industrial Promotion for New South Wales in New York, and later as the Assistant Commissioner for Western Lands.

He died at Gilgandra in 2005.

Achievements

• He later attended boarding school at Street Stanislaus College in Bathurst, and won a scholarship to attend Armidale Teachers College.

Membership

He became heavily involved in the local farming community, serving as secretary and president of the United Farmers and Woolgrowers Association in Gilgandra, and being an active member of several farming and breeding groups.