John Quigley on surviving cancer, bringing down bikies and taking on Clive Palmer

After climbing out of his delivery truck donning a navy-blue singlet and stubbie shorts, John Quigley grabbed his enrolment form and wandered into the University of Western Australia’s prestigious Law School.

The then-22-year-old Aquinas College dropout had spent his late teens working as a stockman at Mardathuna Station in the state’s north before returning to Perth to work for diversified transport company Brambles.

WA Attorney-General John Quigley has dodged further questions about the appointment of Neville Owen to the Perth Casino Royal Commission.Credit: Philip Gostelow

Poring over a novel on the life of former US president Abraham Lincoln during a trip to the old Alberts Bookshop on Murray Street had left Quigley hellbent on pursuing a career in law.

During a morning meeting in the riverside office of then-law school dean professor Eric Edwards in 1970, Quigley explained how Lincoln’s life story had inspired him to attend night school in the hope of one day practicing law.

But Edwards wasn’t convinced law was the right fit for the prospective “mature age” student before him, something Quigley told Business News′ business breakfast this week might have had something to do with the way he was dressed or the beer-loaded truck the professor had clocked outside his window.

“That’s all very fascinating, but the law is not for you,” Edwards told Quigley.

But Quigley stuck to his guns, enrolled in law, sought out the most intelligent young man in the class to compare notes and “wore him like a glove”.

Fifty years on Quigley is hailed Western Australia’s most prolific attorney general, having overseen the passage of more than 60 pieces of legislation through parliament during his time as the state’s chief lawmaker — from the Eviction Act and revenge porn to voluntary assisted dying.

The young man he credits with guiding him through university was Wayne Martin, who went on to become the state’s chief justice.

When Quigley was appointed attorney general in 2017, he sought Martin’s notes again — this time on overhauling the state’s laws.

The 76-year-old father of five ditched the speech notes penned by his media minder, fearing they read too much like a “vanity project”, to share his candid reflections on the moments that had punctuated his distinguished career in law and politics as he prepares to retire in March 2025.

Quigley made his foray into politics in 2001 after having a profound realisation while representing the widow of detective Sergeant Geoffrey Bowen, who was murdered after a bombing in the National Crime Authority office in Adelaide.

“I realised that if you wanted to take on organised crime and stem the flow of crime at a serious level, you couldn’t do it at the bar table, you had to take the risk, resign and go into public life,” he said.

He said he received confirmation the move was the right one in the months before calling time on his 24-year political career in the form of an embrace from the brother of John Pat, the 16-year-old Indigenous boy who died in Roebourne in 1983 after a brawl with off-duty police officers.

Quigley drew the ire of sections of the community after successfully defending the police officers at trial as a young lawyer.

But on the 40th anniversary of Pat’s death, Quigley said he was invited back to attend a memorial concert held in his honour — something he said felt much like recognition of the work he had done to ensure justice for all, including overhauling the unpaid fines laws unfairly impacting Aboriginal people.

“I felt that as attorney general, it was an affirmation that I was on the right track of trying to deliver justice to all people equally before the law,” he told the breakfast.

His service to the WA Police Union over two decades earned him an honourary life membership, but that was revoked in 2007 after he named an undercover police officer involved in the wrongful conviction of Andrew Mallard over the death of jeweller Pamela Lawrence in 1994.

Andrew Mallard walks out of Casuarina prison with John Quigley.Credit: file image

After Mallard had his murder conviction quashed by the High Court and the Corruption and Crime Commission launched a probe into the police, the union voted to strip Quigley of the membership.

Quigley infamously declared his plan to melt down his life membership badge and gift it to Mallard with the words “Veritas Vincit”, meaning “Truth Conquers”.

“I used to tell the jury that you can try to submerge the truth, but like an air filled balloon underwater it will always pop back up,” he said.

“And it was true. [Mallard] was innocent, and the police were corrupt.”

He also reflected on other enemies he had made during his career in law and politics, from prominent WA bikies to former SAS soldier David Everett — who he claimed left him an extortion note at his home in 2011.

Quigley’s anti-consorting laws preventing bikies from socialising or wearing their patches placed him on the wrong side of Mongols bikie Troy Mercanti, who wore a t-shirt to court in 2023 with the attorney-general’s likeness alongside the words “Mr Squigley, Fcuk your laws”.

But his parliamentary career has been punctuated by several scandals, none more well-publicised than having his testimony branded “confused and confusing” and “all over the shop” by the Federal Court during his defamation battle with mining magnate Clive Palmer in 2022.

The court case saw a string of embarrassing messages Quigley had sent then-premier Mark McGowan over a bill to stop Palmer from suing the state for tens of billions of dollars thrown into the public arena, from calling the billionaire a “Big Fat Liar” to revealing he was thinking about defeating Palmer instead of “making love in the sweet hours before dawn”.

The court ruling made national headlines and prompted calls for Quigley’s resignation.

But the attorney general defended his handling of the legislation and his conduct, playing off the correspondence as “a bit of humour with the boss” that he never imagined would become public.

“I know my own weaknesses and my own foibles and I regard myself as the same as everybody else … walking worm food,” he said.

Quigley announcing his retirement alongside WA Premier Roger Cook.Credit: Hamish Hastie

“While I’m still here, I try to do good, and with a bit of humour … I never dreamt it would be subpoenaed and then on the front page of every paper around Australia.”

Quigley also addressed his public battle with T-cell lymphoma and the eastern states medical trial that temporarily made him ill but ultimately saved his life.

He said the experience had a profound effect on him and taught him patience.

While candid in his interview, Quigley declined to give away what his life may hold beyond the March 2025 election.

“The parliament has got to refresh, and you’ve got to be able to know when to call time on yourself … I think that’s an obligation of good leaders,” he said.

“I use the ‘r’ word, the retirement word, but I’m not retiring from work or life.

“I don’t know what’s next in my chapter. It’s for others to judge whether I have still got the mental acuity and physical vigor to go on, but I certainly want to.”

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