Penny Wong (SA, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Foreign Affairs) Share this | Hansard source

by leave—I move:

That the Senate records its sadness at the death, on 8 November 2025, of Graham Frederick Richardson AO, former Minister for the Environment and the Arts; Minister for the Arts, Sport, the Environment, Tourism and Territories; Minister for Social Security; Minister for Transport and Communications; Minister for Health; and Minister for the Environment, Sport and Territories, and former senator for New South Wales, places on record its gratitude for his service to the Parliament and the nation, and tenders its sympathy to his family in their bereavement.

President, I rise on behalf of the government to acknowledge the passing of the former senator for New South Wales Graham Richardson on 8 November at the age of 76. And I convey at the outset the government's condolences to his wife, Amanda, and son, Darcy, and to his family and friends and parliamentary colleagues mourning his passing.

Graham Richardson was a truly larger-than-life figure in Australian politics. He served as a senator for New South Wales for over 11 years and a cabinet minister in both the Hawke and Keating governments. Richo, as he was known, was prominent in Australia's public consciousness for decades, and his impact was felt far beyond this place. His was a storied generation of Labor figures: Hawke, Keating, Evans, Faulkner, Ray and others, leaders who in each of their own ways shaped our party and in turn the nation.

Graham Richardson was born in Kogarah in 1949, the son of Fred and Peggy Richardson. His father was a senior clerk in the Postmaster-General's Department and later a union official, his mother, Peggy, an office manager. Both were involved deeply in union and community life. Immersed in politics from an early age, Graham Richardson joined the Labor Party at 17 and quickly established himself as a leader amongst a generation of ambitious young Labor figures in New South Wales—figures who would go on to play key roles reshaping the Labor Party and, with it, the country.

He served as the general-secretary of the New South Wales branch of the Labor Party from 1976, at the of just 26, until elected to the Senate at the 1983 double-dissolution federal election. At just 33 years of age, he was then the youngest ever senator elected to the parliament. In his first speech to this chamber, Graham Richardson pointed to the first line of the Labor Party's national economic platform of the time to succinctly summarise his commitment to the people of New South Wales who had elected him. It read simply, 'Labor believes the ultimate aim of economic policy is to promote the wellbeing of the people.'

In his first term he sat on the newly created Joint Select Committee on Electoral Reform, and there he drew on his considerable experience as party secretary and campaign director, advocating on the committee for reforms to ensure a strong, functioning parliamentary democracy. The committee made a number of sweeping recommendations designed to make Australian elections fairer and voting easier. The most lasting of these was for the parliament to legislate for an independent electoral commission. The Australian Electoral Commission is something all of us in this place—indeed, all Australians—should cherish and work to continually strengthen.

Graham Richardson was elevated to the Hawke government's ministry in 1987 by the man he had helped install as Labor leader back in 1983, Bob Hawke, and under Prime Minister Hawke he served as minister for the environment and the arts and, later in the life of the Hawke government as Minister for the Arts, Sport, the Environment, Tourism and Territories.

As many have remarked since his passing, it was in his role as minister for the environment that Graham Richardson made his most lasting contribution to Australian public policy. Graham Richardson understood before many others that public consciousness of the environment was growing fast. He deployed his considerable talent for attracting attention in service of crucial environmental issues. He exercised his substantial political clout within the government to ensure that the environment was considered seriously at cabinet level to an extent previously not seen. And he used his considerable influence to broaden Australia's national conversation around environmental protection. He built alliances with green groups that were not necessarily, at the time, natural allies of the Australian Labor Party. He was media savvy, quick witted and prepared to push boundaries. And Graham Richardson went on to become one of the most effective and perhaps, for some, unexpected environmental advocates in Australian political history, something that was even recognised by Bob Brown.

As the Prime Minister has said, there was more to Graham than the long lunches and tall tales. He loved and lived all of what politics can be—service, calling, art and craft—and his work helped elevate the cause of environmental protection at a turning point in Australia's political history. As minister, he oversaw the protection of the Daintree and Kakadu, amongst other areas of wilderness. And he said this:

My memory won't be around for very long, but the rainforests of north Queensland will be around forever.

That is a remarkable legacy and an enduring act of solidarity with future generations.

Graham Richardson continued in the cabinet under Prime Minister Paul Keating, serving as Minister for Social Security, as Minister for Transport and Communications and, finally, as Minister for Health. In social security, he grappled with the rapidly changing social policy landscape as the Australian economy struggled in the early 1990s. In transport and communications, he navigated an increasingly complex media and communications environment. As health minister, he advocated for Indigenous health, motivated to improve the poor conditions he had seen visiting remote communities, and he went on to secure what was then the largest ever investment in Indigenous health. This, like his environmental advocacy, demonstrated that, whilst Graham Richardson certainly believed in power, it was not power only for its own sake. And, as a minister, he deployed a sharp political mind and astute political judgement honed through years of hard politics.

Graham Richardson retired from the Senate in 1994. Upon announcing his retirement from parliament, he declared:

I have been happy in it … I will be a lot happier out of it—

a typically blunt declaration from a man who rarely minced words. Leaving parliament didn't mean stepping back from public life for Graham Richardson, and he continued as a fixture of Australian political life for decades. He turned to journalism, radio and television. He became one of Australia's most recognisable political commentators. And his memoir, Whatever It Takes, published soon after leaving office, cemented his reputation as a man unafraid to confront his own controversies. His life was famously colourful and at times controversial, and indeed in his valedictory address to this chamber he noted he had had 'never laid claim to being perfect'. As such, his legacy isn't simple, nor is it straightforward. But ultimately it is that of a Labor warrior—a fighter for what he believed both for and within the Labor Party, the party which shaped him and which in turn he shaped. In later years, he channelled his remarkable determination into a fight for his health. He undertook that fight with trademark resolve.

Graham Richardson was appointed an Officer of the Order of Australia in June 2020 for his distinguished service to the people and the parliament of Australia. As Prime Minister Albanese has noted, Graham Richardson made one final promise in his final months to his wife, Amanda, who I welcome here today, and to his son, that he would live to see his son D'Arcy, who is also here, complete his Year 12 exams. Graham kept his word.

Once again, on behalf of the government, I express my condolences following the passing of the Hon. Graham Richardson AO, and I extend my sympathies to all who loved him.