Jones was born in Launceston, Tasmania, the son of Annie May (née Simmons) and Harold Vernon Jones. He attended Launceston Church Grammar School, where his father was the headmaster. After leaving school, Jones farmed at Hagley. He moved to Western Australia in 1968 and subsequently farmed at Narrogin, on a property of 2,700 hectares (6,700 acres). From 1972 to 1974, Jones was a member of the state marketing board for barley.[1] He married Margaret Antonia Maslin in 1960, with whom he had three children.[1] His children were called Philippa, Andrew and Angus.
In 1978, several National Country MPs had left the party to form a new group, the National Party. The NCP and the National Party merged in October 1984, under the name of the latter, although the parliamentary NCP was not formally dissolved until January 1985. Its three remaining members in the Legislative Assembly – Jones, Bert Crane, and Dick Old – refused to join the new unified party, instead joining the Liberal Party.[1] At the 1986 state election, Jones and Old were defeated by National Party, although Crane retained his seat as a Liberal.[2]
Later life
After leaving parliament, Jones initially worked as a company executive, and also occupied several administrative positions in the Liberal Party, serving as state president from April 1989 to July 1991 and as a federal vice-president from July 1990 to October 1996. From 1995 to 2002, Jones chaired the Water Corporation, a WA state government agency. He then chaired Defence Housing Australia from 2003 to 2008.[1] Jones died in Perth in January 2017, aged 83.[3]
^ abcdefPeter Vernon Jones – Biographical Register of Members of the Parliament of Western Australia. Retrieved 23 May 2016.
^ abcBlack, David; Prescott, Valerie (1997). Election statistics : Legislative Assembly of Western Australia, 1890-1996. Perth, [W.A.]: Western Australian Parliamentary History Project and Western Australian Electoral Commission. ISBN0730984095.