Peter Walsh (Australian politician)

The Honourable
Peter Walsh
AO
Senator for Western Australia
In office
18 May 1974 – 30 June 1993
Personal details
Born 11 March 1935 (1935-03-11) (age 76)
Doodlakine, Western Australia
Nationality Australian
Political party Australian Labor Party
Occupation Farmer

Peter Alexander Walsh AO (born 11 March 1935) is a former Australian senator and Labor politician from 1974 to 1993.

Walsh grew up in Doodlakine, Western Australia, where he was a wheat and sheep farmer. He was elected to the Australian Senate in 1974, and served as Minister for Resources and Energy from 1983 to 1984 and Finance Minister from 1984 to 1990.[1] He was noted for his pro-free market views.[2]

In his 1995 memoirs, Confessions of a Failed Finance Minister, Walsh was critical of his colleagues and of political processes in general for failing to curb what he saw as wasteful government expenditure, and unnecessary government intervention.[3]

After leaving politics, he was a columnist for the Australian Financial Review and was particularly critical of environmentalism. He was one of the founders of the Lavoisier Group which opposes the Kyoto protocol on global warming. In a speech given in Adelaide on 20 February 2006, Clive Hamilton (director of The Australia Institute) identifies Walsh as one of his list of Australia's climate change "dirty dozen", a group of climate change sceptics with considerable influence over Australian Government policy.[4] Walsh has also expressed criticism over Rudd's National Broadband Network scheme.[5]

Notes

  1. ^ "Biography for Walsh, the Hon. Peter Alexander, AO". ParlInfo Web. Parliament of Australia. http://parlinfoweb.aph.gov.au/piweb/view_document.aspx?id=8070&table=BIOGS. Retrieved 2007-10-27. 
  2. ^ Walsh, Peter. "Labor and the Constitution: Forty Years On". Samuel Giffith Society. http://www.samuelgriffith.org.au/papers/html/volume9/v9chap7.htm. Retrieved 2008-02-17. 
  3. ^ Walsh, Peter (1995). Confessions of a failed finance minister. Milsons Point, N.S.W: Random House Australia. pp. 291. ISBN 0091829992. 
  4. ^ Hamilton, Clive (20 February 2006). "The Dirty Politics of Climate Change" (pdf). The Australia Institute. http://www.tai.org.au/documents/downloads/WP84.pdf. Retrieved 2007-10-27. 
  5. ^ Leaders with no instinct for numbers: The Advertiser 9 January 2010
Political offices
Preceded by
Doug Anthony
Minister for Resources and Energy
1983–1984
Succeeded by
Gareth Evans
Preceded by
John Dawkins
Minister for Finance and Administration
1984–1990
Succeeded by
Ralph Willis