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- "Robert James Heffron's whole political career has shown him to be a man of deep sincerity of purpose and with the courage of his convictions, 'One who never turned his back, but marched breastforward.' It is, in consequence, not surprising that under his ministerial aegis we see the results of his educational zeal and enthusiasm in the rapid growth of the Child Welfare Department, which he has raised to a level equal to the best overseas, in the expansion of library and other cultural facilities, in the planning and creation of new schools, colleges and institutes of higher learning, and last, but not least, in the unfailing sympathy he has always shown with our own University and in his ready understanding of its more pressing problems." (en)
- "The importance of his term as Minister for Education lies not merely in its record length of sixteen years; it lies in the unprecedented challenges of those years and the way he met them. Because of the seminal importance of those years, Mr Heffron could well lay claim to be father of the modern education system in New South Wales. [...] These were years not only of vast expansion in the number of schools and pupils; they were also years of great experimentation and innovation reflecting deep changes in community attitudes to the purposes of education. The Heffron years established for the first time that equality of opportunity in education was the right of all, not just of the privileged few." (en)
- "In looking back on my life, I express happiness that I did go into politics. If anybody had then said to me that I would become a Minister of the Crown, I should have thought that I would be the last card in the pack. When I see these young fellows in the Ministry, it reminds me of when I was beating about back in the dark days of the depression. Had anybody then suggested that I would become a Premier of New South Wales, I should have considered that man a suitable candidate for Callan Park. However, with the passage of time, these things happen, and it then becomes a matter of doing one's best. That is what I have tried to do over the years." (en)
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