Wayne Goss was a proud Queenslander, a dedicated servant of his state and a lifelong champion for social justice.

 

Wayne Goss was a truly great Labor man.

 

Today is a very sad day for the Labor Party – it’s an especially sad day for Labor in Queensland.

 

Beginning his working life as a solicitor for Aboriginal Legal Services, it was the injustice of the Whitlam dismissal which drove Goss to join the Labor Party in 1975.

 

Like Gough before him, Wayne would go on to achieve a drought-breaking electoral triumph, bringing with it a mandate for landmark progressive reforms.

 

His victory in the 1989 state election marked a new era - an end to the malaise and corruption that had eaten away at Queensland’s democracy in the final stretch of 32 years of Conservative rule.

 

The Goss Government rebuilt Queensland: restoring fairness and transparency to the electoral system, bringing in merit-based appointments for the public service and implementing many of the recommendations of the Fitzgerald Inquiry into police corruption.

 

Goss’ reforms modernised Queensland: decriminalising homosexuality, creating new national parks, preventing logging and abolishing the anachronistic Imperial Honours system.

 

And the Goss Government proudly appointed Labor’s first female Cabinet Minister and Queensland’s first female Governor.

 

After leaving politics, Wayne continued to serve the state he loved so much, most notably as Chairman of the Queensland Art Gallery for nine years.

 

Today, all of us in Federal Labor give thanks for Wayne Goss’ life of service, and offer our condolences to his wife Roisin and his children, Ryan and Caitlin.

 

May he rest in peace.

 

MONDAY, 10 NOVEMBER 2014

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