Graeme Campbell (politician)

Graeme Campbell
Member of the Australian Parliament
for Kalgoorlie
In office
18 October 1980 – 3 October 1998
Preceded byMick Cotter
Succeeded byBarry Haase
Leader of the Australia First Party
In office
June 1996 – June 2001
Preceded byPosition established
Personal details
Born(1939-08-13)13 August 1939
Oxfordshire, England
Died16 August 2025(2025-08-16) (aged 86)
Kalgoorlie, Western Australia, Australia
NationalityEnglish Australian
Political partyLabor (1980–1995)
Independent (1995–1996; 2004–2021)
Australia First Reform (1996)
Australia First (1996–2001)
One Nation (2001–2004)
Liberal (2021–2025)
SpouseMichele Lelievre
Part of a series on
Far-right politics
in Australia
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History
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Graeme Campbell (13 August 1939 – 16 August 2025) was an Australian politician. He represented the seat of Kalgoorlie in the House of Representatives from 1980 to 1998 as a member of the Australian Labor Party.[1] He founded the Australia First Party in 1996, before leaving in 2001 to join One Nation and later becoming a member of the Liberal Party.

Early life

Campbell was born in Abingdon, Oxfordshire, England,[1] and came to Australia as a child. He was educated at Urrbrae Agricultural High School in South Australia. In 1972, Campbell met his future wife, French-Australian Michele Lelievre, at a sheep station in the Nullarbor Plain.[2]

Political career

Campbell worked in a range of occupations before entering federal parliament in October 1980 as the Labor member for Kalgoorlie.[1]

Considered a maverick, he was an ardent supporter of the mining industry,[3] and crossed the floor on gold tax in 1988,[4] and was also a vocal critic of the Mabo decision[5] and sanctions on the apartheid regime in South Africa, and a proponent of uranium mining.[6] In October 1993, and again in May 1995, he delivered a speech at the national seminar of the Australian League of Rights, a far-right group for which he was believed to hold sympathies,[7] and in by-elections in Mackellar and Warringah (safe Liberal seats on the Northern Beaches of Sydney) in 1994, he urged electors to vote for Australians Against Further Immigration (AAFI).[8]

After numerous run-ins with the Labor leadership and considerable media attention to his exploits, his Labor preselection for the seat of Kalgoorlie was revoked and he resigned from the Labor party in December 1995. [9] He continued to sit in parliament as an independent, and was reelected as an independent in the 1996 election,[10] when he only received 35% of the primary vote, but defeated the Labor candidate, former Deputy Premier of Western Australia Ian Taylor, on Liberal preferences.

In June 1996, Campbell founded the Australia First Party,[11] but was officially reckoned as an independent. He was defeated for reelection at the 1998 federal election[10] after being eliminated on the seventh count.[12] Campbell blamed his loss on Australia First being eclipsed by One Nation. In 2009, he claimed that, if not for the presence of a One Nation candidate, he would have picked up an additional 8.5% of the vote, which would have been enough to keep him in the race.[13]

He remained Australia First's leader until June 2001, when he left the party to stand (unsuccessfully) as a One Nation Senate candidate in Western Australia. In 2004, he attempted unsuccessfully to regain his old federal seat as an independent.[10] He stood for the Senate in Western Australia at the 2007 federal election as an independent, but only achieved 0.13% of the vote.[14]

In 2021, Campbell joined the Liberal Party.[15] He opposed the Indigenous Voice to Parliament at the 2023 referendum.[15]

Personal life

Campbell died in hospital in Kalgoorlie on 16 August 2025, three days after his 86th birthday, after suffering a stroke.[16][17]

References

  1. ^ a b c "CAMPBELL, Graeme". Senators and Members of the Parliament of Australia. Retrieved 18 August 2025.
  2. ^ Morris, Nathan (5 March 2018). "Finding love in the regions: 'It's different, it's like a different set of rules apply'". Australian Broadcasting Corporation. Archived from the original on 22 March 2023. Retrieved 18 August 2025.
  3. ^ Menagh, Catherine (2 October 1986). "Dust Makes the Wealth of Kalgoorlie and its Golden Mile". The Age. Archived from the original on 18 August 2025. Retrieved 18 August 2025 – via Google News.
  4. ^ Campbell, Graham (10 November 1988). "Taxation Laws Amendment Bill (No. 5) 1988". Parliamentary Debates (Hansard). Parliament of Australia: House of Representatives. p. 2886. Retrieved 18 August 2025. I am opposed to a gold tax for reasons that I have already enumerated.
  5. ^ D. Butler, Eric (3 December 1993). "The Graeme Campbell Tragedy". On Target. Australian League of Rights. Archived from the original on 16 September 2009. Retrieved 24 January 2010.
  6. ^ Raue, Ben. "O'Connor – Election 2010". The Tally Room. Archived from the original on 5 November 2020. Retrieved 18 August 2025. Campbell, while being an ALP member, was on the far right of the party, supporting uranium mining and opposing sanctions on apartheid South Africa and Aboriginal land rights. In the early 1990s he flirted with anti-immigration groups, and his constant differences with the Labor government saw him expelled from the ALP in 1995.
  7. ^ Thompson, David (11 August 1995). "The Campbell Affair and the League of Rights". On Target. Australian League of Rights. Archived from the original on 16 September 2009. Retrieved 24 January 2010.
  8. ^ Jupp, James (4 September 2002). From white Australia to Woomera: the story of Australian immigration. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. p. 136. ISBN 978-0-521-53140-5.
  9. ^ Bennett, Scott (16 February 1999). "The Decline in Support for Australian Major Parties and the Prospect of Minority Government". Archived from the original on 13 July 2010. Retrieved 24 January 2010.
  10. ^ a b c Green, Antony (21 December 2007). "Kalgoorlie". Australia Votes 2007. ABC News. Archived from the original on 10 April 2023. Retrieved 24 January 2010. Kalgoorlie was held for Labor from 1980 until 1996 by Graeme Campbell, whose maverick ways eventually went too far for the ALP, and he was disendorsed just before the 1996 election after making one too many attacks on multiculturalism. He re-contested and won his seat as an Independent, but was easily defeated the second time around in 1998, running third with his preferences delivering the seat to the Liberal Party's Barry Haase.
  11. ^ "The Eight Core Policies of the Australia First Party". 2005. Archived from the original on 12 June 2007. Retrieved 24 January 2010.
  12. ^ 1998 Western Australia election results Archived 14 January 2025 at the Wayback Machine
  13. ^ Destiny Magazine, Issue No. 6
  14. ^ Green, Antony (2007). "Senate Results Western Australia". ABC News. Federal Election 2007. Archived from the original on 22 March 2023. Retrieved 24 January 2010.
  15. ^ a b Buxton, Jeremy (18 August 2025). "Vale Graeme Campbell 1939–2025". libmail.org.au. Liberal Party of WA. Archived from the original on 18 August 2025. Retrieved 18 August 2025.
  16. ^ Turner, Macey (18 August 2025). "Kalgoorlie remembers 'maverick' federal MP Graeme Campbell". ABC News. Archived from the original on 18 August 2025. Retrieved 18 August 2025. His family posted on social media that he died early Saturday morning at Kalgoorlie Regional Hospital.
  17. ^ "Former Federal member for Kalgoorlie Graeme Campbell dies". Kalgoorlie Miner. Archived from the original on 18 August 2025. Retrieved 18 August 2025.

Bibliography

  • Graeme Campbell and Mark Uhlmann. Australia Betrayed: How Australian democracy has been undermined and our naive trust betrayed, Foundation Press, Perth, 1995. ISBN 1-875778-02-0
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