Graham Richardson - Early Political Career in NSW Labor

Early Political Career in NSW Labor

Encouraged by a Labor right-wing factional ally, Senator Kerry Sibraa, to seek election for a role as a Labor Party branch organiser in 1971, Richardson was successful, left his university studies, and discovered the powerbrokers in the NSW Right. He apprenticed himself to learn from these men, some of the toughest in the Labor Party, and progressed to become Assistant Secretary of the New South Wales (NSW) Labor Party in 1976 and General Secretary a little later that year, aged 26 – the youngest ever person to hold that role. John Faulkner, of Labor's socialist left faction, was Richardson's Assistant Secretary and for eight months, so great was their mutual hatred, they did not exchange a word.

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