Norman Henry Lacy (25 October 1941 – 2 May 2026) was an Australian politician, who was a minister in the Hamer and Thompson Cabinets of the Victorian Government from May 1979 to April 1982.
Lacy grew up in Richmond, Victoria and was educated at North Richmond Primary School (1946–1953) and Richmond Technical School (1954–1956). He completed university degrees in theology (Th.Schol., Australian University of Theology) 1969, sociology (B.A. Hons, Monash University) 1975 and management science (M.Sc., Durham University, UK) 1984 and had a diverse career that included periods as an apprenticed plumber, an Anglican priest, a Liberal parliamentarian, a management educator and an information technology industry executive. He was President of Self Employed Australia (formerly Independent Contractors Australia) from 2008 until 2018.
As Minister for the Arts from 1979 to 1982, Norman Lacy was responsible for the construction of the Victorian Arts Centre and the design of its management structure, the establishment of the Australian Children's Television Foundation and the Heide Museum of Modern Art, the creation of Film Victoria, and the reconstitution of the Victorian College of the Arts. As Assistant Minister of Education and Minister for Educational Services from 1979 to 1982, he was responsible for reforming and decentralising the administration of the Education Department of Victoria, for establishing the Special Assistance Program to deal with illiteracy and innumeracy, by training and appointing an additional 1,000 Special Assistance Resource Teachers to primary schools, for introducing a reformed Health and Human Relations Education curriculum, and for compulsory physical education in government schools.Education Department Annual Report, Victorian Government Printer, June 1981, page 7
As a management educator from 1985 to 1994, Lacy brought the internationally renowned Leadership Development Program from the Center for Creative Leadership in North Carolina, to Australia. From 1988, at the Australian Management College, Mt Eliza, he delivered the 6-day program to approximately 900 Australian managers. From 1991 to 1994 he was executive director of the China-Australia Management Centre that was established as an Australian Government aid project near Beijing, China with the China National Non-Ferrous Metals Industry Corporation (CNNC). During Lacy's tenure, 1,500 Chinese managers from more than 300 plants throughout China were trained in western management theory and practice.
He completed his career, in the period from 1994 to 2009, with three executive appointments in the information technology industry. He was Professional Development Director of the Australian Computer Society (1996–1998); founding Managing Director of The Swish Group Limited (1998–2000); and founding Executive Director of ITCRA (Information Technology Contract & Recruitment Association) (2000–2009).
Victorian basketballer Lacy's mother died of lung cancer at the age of 44 on 21 February 1956, when he was 14 years of age. Lacy regarded this event as the most formative of his life.
He dealt with his grief by throwing himself into sport. He played for his local church basketball team in the Church of England Basketball Association competition and devoted all his spare time to the sport. He went on to represent Victoria three times at the Australian Junior (national under age) Basketball Championships - as captain in the Under 16 Championship in Adelaide (1956); as Vice-Captain in the under 18 Championship in Sydney (1957); and as Vice-Captain also in the under 18 Championship in Davenport, Tasmania (1958) in which year, he also won the Best and Fairest Player award.
Soon after the death of his father in May 1960, Lacy was accepted by Dr Stuart Babbage, Principal of Ridley College (University of Melbourne),Ridley College website to live in at the college in Parkville, Victoria, while he studied for his Leaving Certificate, the minimum requirement for the commencement of theological studies, through the George Taylor and Staff correspondence school, in The Causeway off Little Collins Street in Melbourne. After completing that prerequisite in December 1961, he studied theology at Ridley College from 1962 to 1964. In December 1963, he completed his Licentiate in Theology (Th L), the minimum requirement for ordination in the Anglican Church, through the Australian University of Theology. Being too young to be ordained, he spent another year at Ridley, commencing post graduate studies.
Lacy was ordained Deacon on St Andrew's Day, 30 November 1964, and Priest on the same day in 1965, at St Paul's Cathedral, Melbourne, by Frank Woods, the Anglican Archbishop of Melbourne.
In August 1965, Norman Lacy married his first wife, with whom he had three daughters (in October 1968, in November 1970 and in May 1976).
From 1964 to 1966, he served as Curate in the parishes St Mary's Caulfield and, from 1966 to 1968, at St Stephen's Richmond. He was Vicar of St John's Healesville with Yarra Glen and Christmas Hills from 1968 to 1973. Lacy's interest in education policy was fostered in Healesville through the relationship he established with the parents and teaching staff at Healesville High School. He devoted two days each week teaching religious education to each class at the school, becoming, in effect, its honorary chaplain. He added to that integration into the school's life by becoming a member of the school's Parents and Friends Association, and was its honorary secretary for some time.
Early in his incumbency at Healesville, Lacy joined the Liberal Party under the influence, and with the support of, some prominent Liberal parliamentarians who were amongst his parishioners, including Peter Howson, Vasey Houghton, Russell Stokes and Gracia Baylor. Other Liberals, such as Vernon Hauser and Jim Manson, were active in ensuring that he secured the party's pre-selection for the seat of Ringwood in the Victorian Parliament for the 1973 Victorian state election.
Liberal Parliamentarian Lacy was a member of the Liberal Party from 1972 until 1984. He was Member for the electoral district of Ringwood in the Legislative Assembly of the Parliament of Victoria from May 1973 until February 1976, and for Warrandyte from March 1976 until April 1982. He was Secretary of the Parliamentary Liberal Party from 1976 to 1979. He was defeated at the state election that saw the demise of the Thompson Liberal Government and the election of the Cain Labor Government.
Lacy was on the Victorian Parliament's Qualifications Committee in 1973 and 1974. It was on this committee that Lacy got to work with the Opposition Leader Clyde Holding, who often reminded Lacy that for a building trade apprentice from Richmond (the electorate Holding represented) he was in the wrong party. Lacy returned the banter in numerous parliamentary debates in which he took on Holding and his party over the growing level of unemployment that was emerging in the Australian economy under the federal Whitlam government.
From the time that he joined the party in 1972, Lacy was an active and vocal "small l" Liberal and a strong supporter of the leadership of Rupert Hamer. In particular, he was active in his support for Hamer's private member's bill for the abolition of capital punishment in Victoria. Lacy made what many regarded as the finest parliamentary speech of his career on the bill, in which he made much use of his theological training. As a result, he made a number of friends amongst the Labor opposition, including fellow Anglican and Education spokesman Robert Fordham, as well as Barry Jones, who for many years had led the abolitionist campaign on this issue. He also became the unofficial "numbers man" on the Government side of the Legislative Assembly where support for the bill was hard to come by. In that he was assisted by his close friend Peter Block,Barry Jones, A Thinking Reed, Allen & Unwin, 2006. who undertook a similar role in the Victorian Legislative Council where he was a member for Boronia Province, which included Lacy's lower house seat.
1976 was one of the most fulfilling years in Lacy's life. After his re-election to the parliament for the seat of Warrandyte in March 1976, he was elected by the party room to the position of Secretary of the Parliamentary Liberal Party. During his first parliamentary term, he had completed his Bachelor of Arts (Hons) in Sociology part-time at Monash University. His honors dissertation was entitled "A Social Network Approach to the Origination and Quality of Male Neighbor Relationships on Middle Class Housing Estates." He graduated in 1976 and his third daughter was born the same year.
Soon after the 1976 election, Lacy was appointed Chairman of the Parliamentary Party Committee on Social Welfare by the new Minister for Social Welfare Brian Dixon. Lacy was a strong supporter of the politically moderate former Australian rules footballer and Melbourne champion. He admired the career sacrificing position Dixon had adopted on the hanging of Ronald Ryan, his thorough knowledge of economics, his parliamentary debating skills and the value of his many enlightened and reformist policies - particularly the Life Be In It campaign. He long held the view that Dixon was the best prospect the Liberal Party had for a future leader. He thought it incompetent that the Party hadn't arranged for Dixon to be pre-selected for a safe seat and as a result he was defeated along with Bill Borthwick, Glynn Jenkins, Lacy and many others in the 1982 change of government. He believed that the long term consequence of this was that the Party had not prepared for a future in the highly successful Hamer mold and thereafter lacked any capacity for enlightened leadership and progressive policy development. Lacy resigned from the Liberal Party soon after the appointment of Jeff Kennett as Leader of the Liberal Opposition in 1982. He regarded Kennett as being in the Bolte mold, erratic, untrustworthy and lacking policy substance.
Recognising Lacy's interest in and commitment to education issues, Deputy Premier and Education Minister Lindsay Thompson invited Lacy to Chair his Parliamentary Party Committee on Education. This brought the two men closer together and Thompson performed a generous mentoring role with the young parliamentarian. It was a relationship over which Lacy agonized a few years later due to the criticism of Thompson that was implied from the substantial reforms in the administration of education in Victoria that Lacy was convinced he must pursue while in Cabinet. He became increasingly convinced and vocal that the government must restructure the administration of primary and secondary education in Victoria to a devolved school management system which empowered school communities, councils and principals who would obtain specialist support services from regional directorates. He tried, largely without success, to convince Thompson to have his ideas for educational reform, incorporated into the 1979 election policy, but otherwise he remained a great admirer of his mentor.Walter Jona, People, Parliament and Politics, Tertiary Press, 2006, p 178