VALE GRAEME CAMPBELL 1939-2025

Graeme Campbell, Federal Member for Kalgoorlie 1980-1998, changed his political allegiance but remained true to strong conservative, free enterprise principles. As a champion of mining and resource industries, he left the ALP and later gave crucial electoral support to the Liberal Party in the Goldfields, joining the Kalgoorlie branch of the Liberal Party in 2021.

Born in England in 1939, Graeme migrated to Australia as a child and was educated at an Agricultural High School in Adelaide. In the early 1970s, he and his brother operated the Kybo pastoral lease east of Rawlinna on the Nullarbor, where he met and married his French-born wife, Michele. He later worked as a wholesale distributor in the mining industry and as a small business operator until 1980, when he contested the division of Kalgoorlie for the ALP– a very different background from today’s union/parliamentary staffer/public sector Labor candidates. 

Graeme Campbell defeated Liberal MP Mick Cotter by 648 votes and comfortably retained the seat for the ALP in 1983, 1984, 1987 (against future State President and Senator David Johnston), 1990 and 1993.  In these last two elections, despite Labor support slipping in WA, he held Kalgoorlie with 2PP votes of 60.0%, making it the safest ALP seat in the State. 

His aggressive defence of resource industries included opposition to a Gold Tax, support for uranium mining, and criticism of the 1993 Mabo decision on native title.  The retirement of Peter Walsh as the respected free market Finance Minister in 1990, and subsequently as a WA Senator in 1993, would have increased Graeme’s disillusionment with a Labor Party more focused on metropolitan than regional electors.  After speaking out against what he saw as unsustainable immigration levels, he was expelled from the ALP in November 1995.

Recontesting Kalgoorlie as an Independent in 1996, Graeme Campbell was opposed by Ian Taylor, a former ALP Deputy Premier and Opposition Leader, who resigned as MLA for State Kalgoorlie to contest the federal division. Graeme led the count with 35.1% to Taylor’s 34.7%, with Liberal Cedric Wyatt drawing 24.3%: after preferences, he defeated the ALP with 60.3% of the vote.  Following his election win, he founded the Australia First Party.

In 1998, Liberal Barry Haase polled 28.0% of the vote, followed by Labor with 27.6% and Graeme with 22.8%; Barry won Kalgoorlie for the Liberal Party with 52.1% of the final vote, having received the majority of Graeme’s preferences. In 2001, Graeme left Australia First to run as the lead One Nation Senate candidate in WA; Australia First soon became extreme and irrelevant. 

At the 2001 election, the One Nation ticket drew 7.0% of the WA Senate vote. Senator Ross Lightfoot had secured re-election in 3^rd place on National preferences, but subsequently, One Nation preferences elected a moderate Democrat, Andrew Murray, ahead of the Greens. In 2004, Graeme again contested Kalgoorlie as an Independent, polling 10.3% with his preferences favouring Barry Haase, who was re-elected with 56.3%.  

Graeme Campbell was supportive of Matt Birney when he won the State district of Kalgoorlie for the Liberal Party in 2001 and had consistently opposed the ALP to the point that his application to join the Liberal Party was accepted in 2021.  He strongly supported the No Campaign at the 2023 Voice referendum.

The Liberal Party has appreciated his wisdom and political experience as a branch member, and honours his defence of the mining industry, his championing of the Goldfields and regional WA, and his robust conservative values. Our condolences to Mrs Michele Campbell and to their family.   Prepared by Jeremy Buxton