He was an alderman at Mascot from 1923 to 1930 and Randwick from 1931 to 1937. Having been a member of the Australian Labor Party's central executive from 1913 to 1917, he was elected to the New South Wales Legislative Assembly in 1917 as the Labor member for Botany. He served as Minister of Public Instruction from 1921 to 1922 and Minister for Education from 1925 to 1927, when he was expelled from the New South Wales Labor Party as a leading opponent of Premier Jack Lang. Defeated as an Independent Labor candidate in 1927, he became a freelance journalist and in 1931 joined the fledgling United Australia Party. He returned to the Legislative Assembly in 1938 as the UAP member for Coogee, but resigned from the UAP and was defeated in 1941. Mutch died at Coogee in 1958.
