Spokes-man for Liberal
IT seems hard to imagine a time when the federal seat of Corio was not a Labor Party stronghold.
But from 1949 to 1967 the seat was held for the Liberal Party by former road cycling champion Hubert (later Sir Hubert) Opperman.
Oppy, as he was universally known, is remembered in his former electorate by Oppy’s Bistro at the Norlane Hotel. Born in Rochester, Victoria, in 1904, Opperman came third in a cycling race as a 17-year-old, winning for himself a Malvern Star bicycle.
Opperman was to have a long association with Malvern Star Cycles, at one time featuring in a Malvern Star advertisement with Deans Marshborn diva Marjorie Lawrence.
Opperman went on to win the Australian national road race title four times, in 1924, 1926, 1927 and 1929.
Those titles were awarded for winning the Blue Riband for fastest time in the Warrnambool to Melbourne Classic, which for years passed through Geelong.
In 1928 and 1931 Oppy competed in the Tour de France, finishing 18th and 12th respectively.
Opperman’s cycling career ended with the outbreak of World War II when he joined the Royal Australian Air Force.
In 1949 he was preselected by the Liberal Party to contest the seat of Corio, which had been held by the Labor Party for many years by John Dedman.
Opperman and his wife Mavys and children had moved into a house in Douglass St before the election.
Opperman held the seat for the Liberals for 17 years, having seen off Labor challenger Bob Hawke at the 1963 election and scoring his highest ever vote (57.9 per cent) at the 1966 election.
But just two months later, Opperman resigned from parliament to become High Commissioner for Malta.
The subsequent by-election in 1967 was won by Labor’s Gordon Scholes.
Sir Hubert Opperman died in 1996.