Geoffrey I. Gallop

Professor Geoff Gallop, 56, has been Professor and Director of the Graduate School of Government of the University of Sydney since 2006. He was the Premier of Western Australia from 2001 to 2006.

He studied Economics at the University of Western Australia from 1968 to 1971. After winning a Rhodes Scholarship he attended Oxford University from 1972 to 1974 and was the Gwilym Gibbon Research Fellow at Nuffield College, Oxford from 1977 to 1981. He was awarded his Doctorate in 1983.

From 1975 to 1977 he was a postgraduate student at Murdoch University and he returned as a Lecturer in Social and Political Theory from 1981 to 1986.

He was elected the Member for Victoria Park in 1986 and re-elected in 1989, 1993, 1996, 2001 and 2005.

From 1990 to 1993 he was a Minister in the Lawrence Labor Government holding a range of portfolios. In 1994 he was elected Deputy Leader of the State Parliamentary Labor Party and in 1996 he was elected Leader.

In 2001 Dr Gallop was elected Premier of Western Australia, a position he held until 2006.

As Premier Dr Gallop oversaw a range of political and social reforms, upgraded the State’s industrial and labour laws, brought a spirit of reconciliation to the resolution of Native Title and changed the law to require all 16 and 17 year olds to be in education or training. He was the first state premier to commit his government to a major desalination plant, stopped the logging of all of the State’s Old Growth Forests and created a record number of new national parks.

In 2001 he was awarded a Commonwealth of Australia Centenary Medal. In 2003 he was elected a Fellow of the Institute of Public Administration Australia and in April 2006 he was admitted to the honorary degree of Doctor of Letters by Murdoch University.

Professor Gallop has published two books – Pig’s Meat – Selected Writings of Thomas Spence, and the other on Western Australian politics and society – A State of Reform: Essays for a Better Future.

In 2007 Professor Gallop was appointed Deputy Chair of the Council of Australian Government (COAG) Reform Council.

He is married to Beverley and they have two sons.