Local and state politics Upon returning from the war, Critchley gained employment with the
South Australian Railways (SAR) at Peterboroughwhich had been renamed from Petersburg during the waras a carpenter, and married Alice Cave on 6 August 1919. Joining the
Australian Labor Party (ALP), he became president and then secretary of the local party committee, and was later the assistant secretary of the electorate committee for the federal
Division of Grey. The ALP was founded by
trade unions and continues to have close ties to the
labour movement in Australia. Critchley was an unsuccessful candidate for the South Ward in the 1922
town council election, but he later served two terms as a councillor from 1923 to 1924 and 1928 to 1929, though he was unsuccessful in his bid for mayor in 1925. He was on the board of the local hospital, was president of the local sub-branch of the
Returned Soldiers' Association (later the Returned Sailors' and Soldiers' Imperial League of Australia), and was a
justice of the peace. At the
1930 state election held on 5 April, Critchley contested the three-member seat of
Burra Burra in the
South Australian House of Assembly as an ALP candidate, and was elected first, alongside two other ALP candidates, with Critchley receiving 41 per cent of the votes. The election saw the ALP under the leadership of
Lionel Hill resoundingly defeat the
Liberal Federation under
Richard Layton Butler. Labor had committed to addressing high unemployment, which Critchley had described during a speech at
Jamestown on 27 March as "the biggest cursesecond only to war". Critchley's
first speech to the assembly urged action on the provision of rations to unemployed men in country towns. He also praised government protection offered to railway employees providing evidence to the
royal commission on railways, and was critical of the reforms to the railways by the American Chief Commissioner of SAR,
William Alfred Webb. Critchley was sensitive to the situation faced by workers during the
Great Depression, deriding as "wretched" the call of the conservative opposition for "work for rations", and sought a tax on wages for employers and employees alike of three
shillings. He also argued for fertile land in the south east of the state to be compulsorily acquired and used to settle unemployed people, sought to reduce the number of members of the assembly and sought to abolish the state
upper house, the
Legislative Council. In 1931, splits within the ALP were inflamed over the
Premiers' Plana deflationary and austere economic policy which sought to combat the effects of the Great Depression. When the Hill cabinet agreed to the plan,
a schism occurred in the ALP which hardened the divisions. The ALP state council expelled Hill, Critchley and others in August, and Critchley became a member of the
Parliamentary Labor Partyalso known as the Premiers' Plan Labor Party. This party retained government in a minority, with
Lang Labor and state ALP members sitting separately. Critchley was a member of the royal commission on betting in 1932–1933. Critchley ran for re-election in Burra Burra in the
1933 state election held on 8 April, but the divisions in the Labor movement saw the Parliamentary Labor Party swept from power, with Critchley defeated, attracting only 21.8 per cent of the votes. He and the other members of the Parliamentary Labor Party were readmitted to the ALP after a "unity conference" in 1934, and Critchley became president of the electorate committee for the state seat of
Goodwood, for which he ran unsuccessfully for
preselection in 1938. Following his election loss, Critchley worked as a motor registration clerk. During
World War II, he worked in Adelaide as a manager of clothes rationing for industrial occupations, which he later described as "a most unpleasant task". During this period he was active in establishing sub-branches of the ALP in the suburbs of Adelaide.
Federal politics Critchley was an ALP candidate for the
Australian Senate in the
1946 Australian federal election, in the second position on the ALP
senate ticket after
Fred Beerworth, and was duly elected. Critchley's six-year senate term commenced on 1 July 1947. The 1946 election resulted in the re-election of the ALP, which was in power since 1941. Critchley's first speech in the Senate urged haste in settling returned servicemen on agricultural land, sought the implementation of soil and water conservation schemes, supported social services and child immigration, and lauded the
Chifley government's plans to standardise the railways and improve the road transport system. Having previously served on the state parliamentary committee assessing the value of land for settlement, he was critical of the long delays caused by differences between the federal Labor government and the conservative government in South Australia. He was a member of the standing orders committee from 1947 to 1949. On 10 December 1949, in the wake of its attempt to
nationalise the banks, the federal ALP government of
Ben Chifley was defeated by the
Liberal–Country coalition, and went into opposition. On 1 July 1950, Critchley was appointed
opposition whip in the Senateresponsible for managing business and maintaining party discipline, a position he retained until September 1957. In his speeches to Parliament, Critchley advocated for returned service personnel, and expressed concern for the mental health needs of those suffering from what was then known as "
war neurosis"now known as
combat stress reaction. He urged the inclusion of psychiatric wards in military hospitals, and argued it should not be necessary for returned service personnel to prove their mental health condition was war-caused in order to be admitted to such wards. When these developments occurred interstate but had not yet happened in South Australia, he closely questioned the then
Minister for Repatriation, Senator
Walter Cooper. Critchley was appointed to the joint committee on war gratuity in 1951. During the
Cold War period, many ALP members, most but not all of them
Catholic, became alarmed at what they saw as the growing power of the
Communist Party of Australia within the country's
trade unions. These members attempted to combat this alleged infiltration. However, despite the fact that Critchley was a practising Catholic, he opposed the Communist Party Dissolution Bill when it was presented by the government of
Prime Minister Robert Menzies in 1950. Despite strong Catholic opposition to the ALP's banking policies, including the additional powers granted to the
Commonwealth Bank and the push to
nationalise the banks, Critchley remained a vehement supporter of these policies. In 1951 he was a member of the select committee on the Commonwealth Bank Bill 1950 (No. 2), on which government senators refused to serve. When the bill was defeated in the Senate, Menzies called a
double dissolution election. Held on 28 April 1951,
the election resulted in the ALP losing control of the Senate. Critchley was in third position on the ALP senate ticket for South Australia, and was the sixth of ten candidates elected. He was a member of the House Committee from 21 November 1951 to 4 November 1955. At the
1953 Australian Senate election, Critchley was first on the ALP senate ticket, and was the first of five candidates elected. According to his family, when the
ALP split over the issue of communism in 1955, Critchley refused to join the Catholic-dominated breakaway
Australian Labor Party (Anti-Communist)later the Democratic Labour Partydespite being offered the position of party leader in the Senate. In 1956, Critchley and his South Australian Labor colleague Senator
John Ryan advocated for
national serviceman Private F.S.Luxton, who had been hospitalised for three months after the expiry of his training obligation period, to be compensated for the physical disabilities he had suffered. In November 1957, the Menzies government brought fourteen banking bills to the evenly-matched Senate, and despite his ill health, Critchley attended the chamber to ensure the bills were defeated. ,
Pasadena, South Australia|alt=a colour photograph of a square-shaped gravestone of dark grey stone with pale lettering Long periods of absence from the Senate due to illness in his latter years resulted in his resignation as opposition whip in September 1957, and he did not contest the
1958 Australian federal election. He was replaced in the first position on the ALP ticket by
Jim Toohey, who was elected. Critchley retired from the Senate on 30 June 1959 at the conclusion of his term. == Death and legacy ==