Condor Laucke

Sir Condor Louis Laucke, KCMG (9 November 1914 – 30 July 1993) was an Australian politician and businessman. He was a member of the Liberal Party and served as a senator for South Australia from 1967 to 1981. He was president of the Senate from 1976 to 1981. Prior to entering federal politics he was a member of the South Australian House of Assembly from 1956 to 1965.

Laucke was born on 9 November 1914 in Greenock, South Australia. He was the youngest of six children born to Anna Louise (née Jungfer) and Friedrich Laucke. His mother was a Barossa German born in Neukirch and his father had immigrated to Australia from Germany in 1895.

Laucke was named after the German warship SMS Condor. His father was the founder of Laucke Flour Mills and was naturalised as a British subject in March 1914, allowing him to escape internment as an enemy alien during World War I. Laucke's mother died of cancer when he was two years old. He attended local state schools, Greenock Primary School and Nuriootpa Higher Primary School, before completing his secondary education as a boarder at Immanuel College, Adelaide. He also undertook chemistry classes at the Adelaide School of Mines.

After graduating Laucke joined the family business, becoming Director and General Manager of what was now a large milling and stock feed enterprise in 1947.

Laucke was elected to the South Australian House of Assembly in the 1956 election, representing the Electoral district of Barossa as part of Sir Thomas Playford's Liberal and Country League government. He was re-elected in 1959 and 1962, and from 1962 to 1965 served as Government Whip and was regarded by colleagues as a potential future leader of the Liberal and Country League. However Laucke lost his seat to Labor candidate Molly Byrne in the 1965 election which swept the Liberal and Country League from office after 32 years in government—an election campaign in which Barossa, where northern Adelaide urban sprawl was overflowing into an otherwise rural and conservative electorate, was particularly targeted by Labor.

On 2 November 1967, Laucke was elected by the parliament of South Australia to fill the casual vacancy caused by Clive Hannaford's death. He filled the remainder of Hannaford's term, which expired on 30 June 1968, and at the 1967 half-Senate election was elected to a six-year term in his own right. He was re-elected at the 1974 and 1975 elections, which followed double dissolutions, and retired at the conclusion of his term on 30 June 1981.

Laucke was President of the Australian Senate from 17 February 1976 until 30 June 1981.

After retiring from the Federal Parliament, Laucke acted as Lieutenant Governor of South Australia from July 1982 to April 1992, during which time he performed the role of Governor for more than 300 days, while Governor Sir Donald Dunstan was either ill, out of the state or visiting remote areas.

Laucke married Rose Hambour in 1943, with whom he had two children. He died on 30 July 1993 at his home in Greenock, South Australia. He was granted a state funeral.

In 1974, Laucke was one of the founding members of the Barons of Barossa, an organisation formed to promote the Barossa Valley and its winemaking and grape growing industries, to preserve its heritage, traditions and standards, and to carry out philanthropic works.

On 30 December 1978, Laucke was made a Knight Commander of the Order of St Michael and St George "for Services to the Parliament of Australia."