Background
He was the third surviving son of Australian-born parents, Philip Tobyn Keon, a lorry driver, and his wife, Jane (née Scott).
He was the third surviving son of Australian-born parents, Philip Tobyn Keon, a lorry driver, and his wife, Jane (née Scott).
His Christian names were registered as Horace Stanley. Horace being the name of a brother who had died the previous year. Keon himself was widely seen as a future Prime Minister.
Keon was narrowly defeated in Yarra by the Labor candidate, Jim Cairns.
All of the other Labor defectors were defeated as well. He made four subsequent attempts to vanquish Cairns at succeeding federal elections, all of which were unsuccessful.
Keon"s November 1945 election to the electoral district of Richmond in the Victorian Parliament followed a bitter pre-selection contest between supporters of the political machine of John Wren on the one hand, and the "Catholic Social Studies Movement" of Bachelor of Arts Santamaria on the other. In 1955, he and six other Victorian federal members were expelled from the Labor Party, as a result of the split in the party caused by the controversy surrounding the role of Industrial Groups within the ALP.
In April 1955, the seven expelled Labor parliamentarians became founding members of the Australian Labor Party (Anti-Communist), which was renamed the Democratic Labor Party in 1957.