If Val Jeffery enters Parliament in two weeks, as expected, he will be the oldest politician by some distance to serve in an ACT Parliament and will probably break federal records to boot.
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Mr Jeffery, 81, will serve just two-and-a-half months if he takes up his seat at the start of August. He is not expected to contest the October election, so might also take the record for the shortest ACT parliamentary career. There are, though, no generous allowances for former parliamentarians, with the ACT paying two weeks for every year of service – and he won't even have a year.
To date, Trevor Kaine holds the age record for an ACT parliamentarian, leaving politics at 73 and eight months after failing to win a seat at the 2001 election. Labor's Mary Porter is close behind, leaving the Assembly this year at 73 and six months. The Liberal's Steve Doszpot will be 68 in October and if he wins his seat again, will be 72 by the next election.
No others appear to have stayed in Parliament beyond their late 60s.
It appears Mr Jeffery will also be older than anyone to have entered the Federal Parliament in its more than 100-year history.
The oldest person elected to the federal lower house was Edward Braddon, who was 71 when elected. He died three years later. The oldest person elected to the Senate was John Verran, 71, who served just one year, according to a federal parliamentary research paper updated two years ago.
The oldest person to become prime minister was John McEwen, who took the post at 67, in 1967, although he was gone just one month later. The oldest prime minister was Robert Menzies, who was 71 when he resigned in 1966.
The oldest person to become a minister was Joseph Collings in 1941. He was 76 and a minister till 81.
The oldest federal MP ever was William Morris Hughes, who entered Parliament at 38 in 1901 and died in office in 1952, aged 90.
In NSW, Fred Nile is 81. He turns 82 in September, three months before Mr Jeffery.
And why not? In setting age records, Mr Jeffery is doing little more than urged by the federal government, which is slowly increasing the qualifying age for the age pension to 70. Mr Jeffery is not the only one who will be working well into his wise years.
