Reformist Wayne Goss failed to settle daylight saving debate

In the first year of his government in 1990, Queensland’s first Labor premier in more than 30 years made a bold prediction.

Wayne Goss at Seaworld in April 1990.

In the first year of his government in 1990, Queensland’s first Labor premier in more than 30 years made a bold prediction.

Wayne Goss vowed to end the daylight saving debate in the sunshine state once and for all. But Mr Goss was wrong.

Queensland government cabinet minutes from 1990, publicly released on Friday, reveal Mr Goss as a reformist, methodical premier, responsible for overhauling the public service, implementing post-Fitzgerald Inquiry anti-corruption measures, beginning to unravel Sir Joh Bjelke-Petersen’s infamous gerrymander, appointing the state’s first woman judge, and decriminalising homosexuality.

The minutes show he grappled with a tourism industry in crisis in the grips of the pilots’ dispute, overruling Treasury objections to fund a $2.2m promotional campaign to raise Queensland’s profile.

Mr Goss introduced a pecuniary interest register for ministers, insisted senior executives in the public service be appointed on merit, and restored a hiring provision that gave preferential treatment to bureaucrats who vowed to join or were already members of ­unions.

He reversed the former ­Nationals government’s ­“obstructionist” position towards the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody, ordering public servants to fully co-operate with commissioner Lew Wyvill. The Goss government later indicated support for the majority of the commission’s recommendations.

The government adopted the Australian Environment Council strategy for ozone protection, ordered a public inquiry into conservation on Fraser ­Island, and endorsed UNESCO’s 1988 declaration of the Wet Tropics as a world heritage area.

But despite his other successes, ending the daylight saving ­debate was not to be.

University of Queensland political historian Chris Salisbury said that in August 1990, cabinet agreed to Mr Goss’s proposal to introduce daylight saving time statewide “on a permanent basis”. Introducing the Summer Time Bill to parliament in October, Mr Goss said it would “settle the (daylight saving) issue once and for all”.

But a referendum on the issue in February 1992 was defeated and the topic remains an arguing point for Queenslanders.