sentences:  In May of that same year he was elected to the Auckland City Council as a Labour Party candidate.He served three years as a councillor, chairing the council's library committee, until he was defeated standing for re-election in 1938.He then became the assistant secretary of the Auckland Coach and Car Builders' Union and the Auckland Brewers', Wine and Spirit Merchants' Employees' Union in 1936, and then secretary of both unions the following year, remaining in that post for the latter union until 1963.