Alan Joseph Missen (22 July 192530 March 1986) was an Australian lawyer and politician. He was a member of the Liberal Party and served as a Senator for Victoria from 1974 until his death in 1986. He was known as a leader of the party's social liberal wing.
Early life
Missen's parents were Clifford Missen, labourer, and Violet (née Bartley). Clifford hailed from Lismore in western Victoria and Violet from Chiltern in northern Victoria. They met in Melbourne where they married in 1920 and settled in the inner eastern Melbourne suburb of Kew. Alan Missen was educated at Kew Primary School, Box Hill High and matriculated from the selective Melbourne High School. He commenced a law degree at the University of Melbourne in 1943 and immediately became active in student politics.
Formation of the Liberal Party of Australia
When the Liberal Party of Australia was formed by Robert Menzies in 1944, Missen, who lived in Menzies' electorate of Kooyong, became a founding member of the Liberal Party and the Melbourne University Liberal Club. He commented in later years: "What was formed was not a radical party on the model of the British Liberal Party. The members of Parliament constituting its first MPs were the same men who were United Australia Party members immediately before, and they brought with them their conservative ways of thought." In 1947 he commenced a legal career that was to last for 27 years until his election to Federal Parliament. He established a successful partnership with Roy Schilling and Bill Impey.
Communist Party referendum
Robert Menzies was elected as the first Liberal Prime Minister of Australia in 1949 on a platform that included outlawing the Communist Party of Australia. In 1951 the Menzies Government called a referendum to provide the Commonwealth with the constitutional power to implement its policy. Alan Missen and a small group of other Liberal Party members opposed the referendum proposal. Missen's opinion piece in The Argus newspaper caused a furore in the Liberal Party. In a scathing critique of the referendum proposal, he poses the following rhetorical question: "Have we so little faith in our ability to defeat Communism in a free encounter that we must employ totalitarian methods against them?" The Liberal Party's Victorian Division voted to suspend Missen as vice-president of the Young Liberal and Country Movement. The referendum proposal was narrowly defeated, a major setback for the Menzies Government. Missen's defiant position on the Communist referendum caused him to be overlooked for Liberal preselection for the next two decades.
Marriage
Missen was engaged to Mollie Anchen, school teacher, in 1962. They met through the Debaters' Association of Victoria. Missen was the Association's president from 1958–1960. Former Labor Senator John Button debated against both and rated Missen as very good "but not half as good as Mollie, who was terrifying – really!" The Missens married in 1963.
Political career
During the period from 1951 until his eventual election to the Senate, Missen was passed over for pre-selection for a Parliamentary seat on several occasions, due in part to his strong position taken on the Communist Party Dissolution Bill. He contented himself with significant activism at a "grass-roots" level, particularly with younger Liberal Party members and adherents. He was elected to the Victorian State Executive and participated energetically in its committee system and also was an early supporter of the quarterly Checkpoint formed in 1969 to stimulate a greater level of policy debate.
Following the defeat of the Liberal Government in 1972, after 23 consecutive years in office, the Liberal Party in Victoria underwent substantial changes. Missen was elected vice-president of the Victorian Division on the same ticket as the party's new president Peter Hardie. Missen also served as chairman of the Liberal Party's State Platform Committee, with a mandate to revise the party's platform for the first time since 1952.
Another Missen ally, Billie Snedden, was elected Federal Opposition Leader following the Liberal Party's electoral loss in December 1972. In 1973 Missen was elected by the Liberal Party's Victorian State Executive to a winnable position on the party's Senate ticket for the following Federal election. Journalist Alan Trengove speculated: "Whether Alan Missen has learned the art of political compromise or whether the Liberal Party has simply come to terms with his brand of liberalism only time will tell." In 1974, he was elected to the Australian Senate as a Liberal Senator for Victoria.