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House of Assembly - Fifty-Third Parliament, First Session (53-1)
2014-11-11 Daily Xml
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Condolence

Goss, Hon. W.K.

The Hon. J.W. WEATHERILL (Cheltenham—Premier) (14:04): On indulgence, sir, it is with great sadness I inform the house of the passing of the Hon. Wayne Goss, a former Premier of Queensland. He died at his home on 10 November 2014 surrounded by his wife and children. This is a great personal sadness as well as being a loss to the Australian, Queensland and South Australian communities. Wayne Goss was Premier of Queensland from 7 December 1989 to 19 February 1996, ending 32 years of Coalition/National Party rule, which has to be a good thing.

A lawyer by trade involved in a number of community and legal reform groups, he was first elected to the district of Salisbury in 1983 and then later in 1986 as the member for Logan. He was leader of the Labor Party from March 1988. It is said that he joined the ALP in 1975 because of his outrage at the dismissal of Gough Whitlam. Initially he was reluctant to join the Labor Party because he saw the Queensland ALP as too conservative, but he was a great reformer of Queensland. He focused on making Queensland a headquarters for economic development, invested in education and research, maintained close ties with universities and implemented a number of important social reforms including appointing Queensland's first female minister and first female governor. He decriminalised homosexuality.

Beyond politics he took an active interest in the arts. He chaired the Queensland Art Gallery, he was Director of the Brisbane Broncos, he was national chairman of Deloittes and was a member of the taskforce responding to the 2010-11 Queensland floods.

Mr Goss battled a series of brain tumours for 17 years, undergoing four operations to remove them. He was an incredibly courageous man in the face of those awful challenges. I remember speaking to him one day about those matters. He said, 'Psychologically I can never look backwards.' He was the most relentlessly positive person I have ever met. He helped out the South Australian government in relation to his work on the Government Reform Commission. It is with great sadness that we acknowledge his passing but also express gratitude for his service.

Mr MARSHALL (Dunstan—Leader of the Opposition) (14:07): On indulgence, sir, I rise to support the Premier's acknowledgement of the passing of former Queensland Premier Wayne Goss. Premier Goss had a distinguished career in politics and government as well as in the business and community sectors. He came to power in Queensland in 1989 at the end of a highly tumultuous period of politics in Queensland that had well and truly reverberated across the nation.

His election ushered in a number of milestone reforms, particularly the implementation of the recommendations of the Fitzgerald inquiry which slowly restored public confidence in key Queensland government institutions. After his time as Premier, he pursued a number of opportunities in business and community organisations and continued to contribute to Queensland and the nation more broadly.

Unfortunately he spent the past 18 years battling brain tumours which he ultimately succumbed to yesterday morning. I join with the Premier in passing on the condolences of this parliament to the Goss family.

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