As a student in Perth he was a socialist, but while studying at the London School of Economics he became converted to the economic views of John Maynard Keynes, and he spent the rest of his career pursuing Keynesian solutions to Australia's economic problems.
Pat Coombs | Nat Coombs | H. C. Coombs | Ted Coombs | Stephen Coombs | Simon Coombs | Frederick Coombs | Doug Coombs | ''Ambling Down Montgomery Street''. Joshua A. Norton, Bummer and Lazarus are accompanied by "Frederick Coombs |
Following the referendum in 1967 which removed provisions in the Australian Constitution which discriminated against Indigenous Australians, the Prime Minister Harold Holt invited Dexter to join the anthropologist W. E. H. Stanner and H. C. Coombs to form the Council for Aboriginal Affairs (CAA) and advise on national policy.
He ran for reelection in 1892 and won a seat in the Fifty-third Congress.