Queensland Former Premier Dies..

RIP, Wayne Goss. Described as Queenland's Gough Whitlam.

Wayne Goss was described as Queensland's Gough Whitlam for his work reforming the state's Labor Party.

Griffith University lecturer in politics and journalism Paul Williams said Mr Goss's 1989 election victory was often described as inevitable as a result of the fallout from the Fitzgerald inquiry into corruption.

But Professor Williams said in fact it was Wayne Goss's keen legal mind and push for structural and policy reform that laid the foundation.

"He did for the Queensland Labor Party what Whitlam did for the federal Labor Party 20 years before that, and that was to modernise it, make it relevant to the middle classes and clean up the factions."

Professor Williams said Mr Goss was the right man for the job at the right time.

"He was this urbane solicitor, middle class, spoke articulately, focused on cleaning up Queensland," he said.

"That really appealed to Queenslanders not just in urban areas ... but they got big swings in regional Queensland as well."

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"That of course ushered in a wave of reforms the likes of which Queensland had never seen - cleaning up the electoral system, cleaning up parliamentary and cabinet services, cleaning up the public service, cleaning up judicial appointments."

Professor Williams described the era as the biggest watershed in Queensland since it separated from New South Wales in 1859.

"Queensland changed more in six years than the previous 60," he said.

"It took a man of Goss's legal mind to navigate Queensland through rapid political culture change ... and to allow Queenslanders to accept that this change was both necessary and good."

Professor Williams said Mr Goss, like southern premiers Nick Greiner and Jeff Kennett, followed a program of economic rationalism.

"Through the early to mid 1990s, the mantra was 'We've got to balance the books'," he said.

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Read more: http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/que...s-academic-20141110-11jqqq.html#ixzz3IeJWpeXP
 
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