Varun Ghosh (WA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The combination of longevity and sustained achievement in a political career is a rare thing. For more than a quarter of a century, Bill Johnston has been a central figure in the election and success of Labor governments in Western Australia. He's also been a friend and a political mentor during my time in the Labor Party. He retires this year from the Western Australian parliament. It is no easy thing to try to provide a snapshot of a career that has encompassed decades of service to the union movement, the Labor Party, the Western Australian parliament and the people of Western Australia.

As a state secretary for the Western Australian Labor Party, Bill applied his enormous capacity for hard work, his attention to detail and his deep well of common sense to the conduct of election campaigns. He ran the election campaigns that elected Geoff Gallop as Premier in 2001 and re-elected Dr Gallop in 2005. Those were governments that ended old-growth forest logging across the state, improved water security in Western Australia and built a railway line to Mandurah, among other things. In 2008, Bill was elected as the Western Australian member for Cannington, and the electorate has benefited from his energetic advocacy since. On road safety, he's fought to fix black spots, upgrade intersections and replace level crossings, and, in education, he's secured significant upgrades to schools in the electorate, including a major upgrade to the Lynwood Senior High School.

Bill has always been a policy wonk or a nerd. As a person who came up through the organisational wing of the Labor Party, the Shop, Distributive and Allied Employees' Association and the party office, this has sometimes surprised people, but it has never been possible to catch up with Bill without hearing about the latest technology or policy initiative that could benefit the people of Western Australia. The philosopher Bertrand Russell once said that arguing with John Maynard Keynes felt like taking his life into his own hands. Those on the other side of policy debates with Minister Johnston must have felt something similar when facing someone with his depth of knowledge, strength of purpose and withering sense of humour.

Bill served in the cabinets of the governments of Mark McGowan and Roger Cook and was one of the pillars on which each of those governments was built. Through his leadership as the Minister for Industrial Relations, he secured nation-leading reforms that made industrial manslaughter illegal in Western Australia. That is, he outlawed the preventable workplace deaths that were caused by employer negligence. Under the legislation he passed, insurance could no longer be obtained to cover penalties incurred for preventable workplace accidents and deaths. Bill's roots in the trade union movement and his policy acumen secured this vital reform and ended the lack of accountability for those workers and for those people responsible for workers not returning home at the end of the day.

As Minister for Energy, Bill Johnston tackled the challenges arising from integrating higher volumes of rooftop solar into the grid in Western Australia and was involved in developing and implementing the early stages of the economic transition of the town of Collie away from coalmining by attracting new industries and clean technology to the region and investing in training programs for workers. As the Minister for Mines and Petroleum, Bill was a steward of the engine room of the Western Australian and Australian economies. When he announced his retirement from the ministry, Australian Energy Producers Western Australia Director Caroline Cherry observed:

Mr Johnston … has contributed significantly to the prosperity and development of the Western Australian resources sector over the past six years.

Bill was also Western Australia's first ever Minister for Asian Engagement, an appropriate role for someone whose love for our region and for one of our most important neighbours, Indonesia, has always been a feature of his outlook on public life. That outlook traces back to his time as an exchange student in Bandung, in the West Java province of Indonesia, in 1981 and 1982. It speaks to another aspect of Bill's character that he has retained his links with his host family and friends from that exchange for more than 40 years. Building Western Australia's links with Indonesia has been a labour of love for Bill.

These achievements and others speak to Bill's enormous horsepower and capacity as a minister. He was also asked to take on the toughest jobs in the government and brought his trademark rigour, tenacity and focus to those jobs. They were jobs that, in political terms, might be described as difficult—jobs that Sir Humphrey Appleby might have described as 'courageous' ones to undertake—but Bill never shirked those decisions and he has never wanted for courage. The Premier of Western Australia, Roger Cook, described Bill on his retirement in these terms: 'He is easily, by far and away, the most technically proficient cabinet minister that I have, and was always able to make an important contribution to the discussions in cabinet.' When asked about his seeming penchant for difficult roles, Bill spoke to the higher purpose of politics and his own role in it. He said, 'I was asked to do some complex jobs, and if people thought that that was because I was competent then that's a great compliment to me, but, in the end, politics is more important than the individual.'

Despite never taking a backwards step politically, Bill retires with an enviable reputation. He is respected across a cross-section of the West Australian community, and, in a political climate that often elevates contumely and vitriol, Bill remained committed to bringing thoughtfulness, candour, inquiry and integrity to his tasks. He leaves behind the legacy of a builder. At every stage of his career, he has brought people along and built them up. Many within the Western Australian Labor Party and the labour movement, including me, have benefited enormously from Bill's generosity with his time and advice.

For as long as I can remember, whenever anyone has asked Bill, 'How are you?' his unfailing if mischievous reply has been, 'All the better for seeing you.' After his more than four decades of service to the people of Western Australia, our state is all the better for having known Bill Johnston.