People Australia

George Petersen, n.d.

NSW Parliamentary Archives

Wilfred George Petersen (1921-2000) telephonist, public servant, trade union official, Communist and parliamentarian

Birth: 13 May 1921 at Childers, Queensland, son of Queensland-born parents Peter Petersen (1887-1956), a carpenter of Danish descent, and Vera Hulda Eva (Eva), née Engstrom (1892-1939). Marriages: (1) 19 December 1947 at the general registry office, Brisbane, to native-born Elaine Verna Tout (1924-?), a library assistant. They had one daughter and one son. The marriage ended in divorce in 1975. (2) 4 October 1975 at the Registrar General’s Office, Sydney, to a native-born divorcee Mairi Isobell Wilson Gould, née McPhee (1940-?), a teacher. Death: 28 March 2000 at Shellharbour Hospital, Mount Warrigul, NSW; usual residence Boollwarroo Parade, Shellharbour. Religion: atheist 

• Educated at Childers State School and Bundaberg High School. Worked as a telephonist in the Postmaster General’s Department. Was attached to Bundaberg Post Office in 1939.
• Enlisted for full time duty in the Australian Citizen Forces on 22 January 1942 and was transferred to the Australian Imperial Force on 1 August 1942. Served in the 2/5 Australian Commando Squadron in 1942-1946; saw active service in Borneo in 1945. He was discharged on 26 June 1946.
• Employed in the Commonwealth Public Service from 1939 to 1967.
• Pensions officer and later employed with the Special Magistrate, Department of Social Services, Wollongong, until 1968. Member of the Miscellaneous Workers' Union. Member of the NSW state council of the Commonwealth Administrative and Clerical Officers' Association in 1959-1968.
• Joined the Communist Party of Australia in 1943 when in the army. He eventually left the party in 1956 after the Russian suppression of the Hungarian uprising, but retained an identification with Marxism.
• Joined the Australian Labor Party in 1957. Secretary of the Unanderra branch of the ALP in 1959-1969. Chief organiser for Rex Connor, Federal member of Parliament in the Wollongong area.
• Elected member of the Legislative Assembly for Kembla from February 1968 to January 1971 and for Illawarra from February 1971 until 1988 (expelled); ‘crossed the floor’ in 1987 to vote against what he viewed as the Unsworth Government’s dilution to workers’ compensation where expulsion from ALP automatically followed.
• Through his period as an MLA he campaigned for many unpopular causes, at least at the beginning, such as prison reform in the early 1970s, safe and legal abortions, homosexual law reform (which came later in 1984) and the freeing of three members of Ananda Marga, jailed in connection with the Hilton bombing (and later exonerated).
• Secretary of the SPLP Chief Secretary's Committee and Education Committee; secretary of Cunningham Federal Electorate Council; secretary of Illawarra SEC; secretary of Wollongong Municipal Committee; member, NSW Administrative Committee from June 1971; committee member NSW Council of Civil Liberties 1970 onwards; member delegation to Egypt, Libya and Lebanon in 1974. Contested State election as Independent Labor candidate in 1988.
• Remained active in environmental and civil liberty.
• Cause of death: sepsis (days/weeks), cellulitis (days/weeks), gout-chronic tophaceous (years), chronic renal failure (years), ischaemic heart disease (years) and cerebral accident (years). 

Sources
Heather Radi, Peter Spearritt and Elizabeth Hinton Hinton (eds), Biographical Register of the NSW Parliament 1901-1970 (Canberra, 1979); Labor Year Book 1973; Sydney Morning Herald, 3 April 2000; Hall Greenland, Red Hot: the Life and Times of Nick Origlass 1908–1996 (Sydney, 1998), pp 304-05; speech by Jim Staples, Glebe Town Hall, Sydney, 16 April 2000; information in alphabetical list attached to paper files, which includes photo)