Both lived in Waihi during the Waihi miners" strike in 1913 and had to leave the town. As a school boy at Auckland Grammar School, Warren Freer suffered a spinal injury, and he subsequently did not join the war. Freer stood unsuccessfully in the 1946 election for the "hopeless" (for Labour) Eden electorate.
He was only 26 when he entered Parliament following the death of Arthur Richards, and was relatively unknown to Labour executive members, but local supporter Dick Barter convinced Peter Fraser that his work in Eden was adequate apprenticeship.
In 1955 he was the first Western politician to visit China, against the wishes of Labour leader Walter Nash, but with the encouragement of Prime Minister Sidney Holland. He was succeeded by Helen Clark and then David Shearer.
He was a cabinet minister in the Third Labour Government of 1972–1975, holding the portfolios of Trade and Industry and of Energy Resources. He lost on the third ballot.
He was acting Prime Minister three times, and was "appalled" by the amount of paper Kirk was given to read, with "international secrets" that he could read in that week"s Time.
On the first occasion, Kirk congratulated him that there were no industrial disputes and that he had not gone to war against anyone. In 1996, he moved to Noosa on the Sunshine Coast in Australia. Warren Freer Park, in the Auckland suburb of Sandringham, is named for him.
Freer"s first wife died in 2003.
They had been married for 62 years. Freer died on 29 March 2013 after a long illness.