Statement on the Death of Wayne Goss

Monday, 10 November 2014

Queensland has lost a great man, a great leader and one whom history will conclude was its greatest post-war Premier.He changed the face of Queensland, how Queenslanders looked at themselves, and how the rest of the nation saw Queensland.Had Wayne Goss contented himself with a private and not a public life – as his prodigious talents would have seen him rise to the top in virtually any field – Queensland would be a vastly different place.The fact that he chose a political vocation, with all the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune that attend it, made Queensland a decisively better place for us all.Had there been no Wayne Goss, who knows how long the state would have had to endure the most corrupt electoral system in the country’s history?Wayne Goss through the sheer power of his personality, an extraordinary determination, a deep, a driving sense of justice that began with his early days at the aboriginal legal service, and a profound resonance with the people of Queensland, changed all that.He managed to triumph despite the gerrymander, and then destroy the gerrymander altogether, and for all time.No-one else could have done it. He did. And it took more than 50 per cent of the primary vote to do so. An extraordinary political accomplishment.And with that single act, all other change became possible with the vast array of political, social and environmental reforms that followed, all within the framework of sound and strong economic management – as Queensland once again joined the national fold after more than a third of a century.We are all the poorer for his passing. Therese and I and our family extend our deepest condolences to Roisin, Ryan and Caitlin in their grief.