Cohen was born on 3 April 1935 in Griffith, New South Wales.[1] His parents had settled in Griffith during the Great Depression,[2] where his South African-born father worked as a dentist. His paternal grandparents were Polish Jews from the villages of Pajęczno and Działoszyn, who immigrated to Australia via England and South Africa; other members of the family who remained in Poland were killed in the Holocaust.[3]
Cohen spent his early years in Griffith, where he later recalled his family was one of only three Jewish families in the town. At the age of 10 he was sent to Sydney to board at Sydney Grammar School,[2] where he was subjected to antisemitic bullying.[3] He was a golf and squash champion as a schoolboy, and after leaving school worked for periods as a sporting goods salesman and squash coach.[2] He was a member of the Citizen Military Forces from 1953 to 1957 and undertook national service training with the 12th Battalion.[1]
Cohen eventually settled in Turramurra and established a menswear store in St Ives.[2] He was president of the St Ives Merchants' Association and in 1965 led a protest calling on the state government to extend shopping hours.[4] He remained involved with sport as a golf, squash and tennis commentator, including on broadcasts of the Davis Cup.[5]
In his first years in parliament Cohen emerged as a prominent advocate of road safety. In 1971 he published a 110-page booklet on road safety titled The Australian Way of Death.[8] He was appointed chair of the House of Representatives Select Committee on Road Safety in 1973, remaining chair until 1976 following its conversion to a standing committee in 1974.[1]
Cohen was elected to Bill Hayden's shadow ministry in 1977 and named opposition spokesman for the environment, sport and recreation, tourism and home affairs.[1] As a frontbencher he lobbied for the Australian government to assist the Soviet Jewry movement and "facilitated ties between the government and the community in its campaign to raise awareness of the plight of Soviet Jewry".[1]
After the 1987 election, Cohen failed to win re-election to the ministry and his tenure as a minister ceased on 24 July 1987.[1] He was defeated in the caucus ballot by ALP powerbroker Graham Richardson and subsequently "launched a bitter attack" on Richardson and the ALP's factional system.[10][11]
After leaving parliament, Cohen remained active as a political commentator, writing columns for The Australian and The Bulletin.[12] In 2004 he attracted attention through an opinion piece in the Australian Jewish News in which declared that antisemitism was "rampant" in the ALP.[13]
In 2015, Cohen and three other former MPs brought a case before the High Court of Australia, purporting that reductions to their retirement allowances and limitations on the number of "domestic return trips per year" under the Members of Parliament (Life Gold Pass) Act 2002 were unconstitutional under S51(xxxi) of the Constitution of Australia. They lost the case in 2016, with the court finding that Parliament was entitled to vary the terms of allowances.[14]
Publications
In retirement Cohen wrote a number of books on political anecdotes, and an autobiography:[15]
Life with Gough (1996)
From Whitlam to Winston (1997)
The Almost Complete Gough (2001)
The Life of the Party – Political Anecdotes (1987)
How to Become Prime Minister (1990)
Personal
Cohen married Rae McNeill in October 1959 and they had three sons.[16]
Although Cohen voted for the decriminalisation of homosexuality in the 1970s, he spoke out against gay marriage, arguing that "gay marriage and conventional marriage is [not] the same thing".[17]
In 2014, Cohen publicly announced he had been diagnosed with early-stage dementia in an interview with 7.30, in which he called for the government to sponsor further research into the condition.[18] He died of Alzheimer's disease on 18 December 2017, aged 82.[19]
Honours
Cohen was appointed a Member of the Order of Australia in the Queen's Birthday Honours in 2007, for service to the Australian Parliament and to the community through a range of cultural and environmental roles and contributions to public discussion and debate.[20]
