Peter Nagle

Peter Richard Nagle (born 23 March 1946) is an Australian politician. He was an Labor Party member of the New South Wales Legislative Assembly from 1988 to 2001, representing the electorate of Auburn.

Nagle was born in Sydney, and studied at Benedict Boys High School, Macquarie University and the University of Sydney. He worked variously as a lawyer, union official and TAFE teacher before entering politics. He also served a stint in the Army Reserve from 1962 to 1967, and was elected to the Auburn Council from 1970 to 1976.

Nagle won election to the safe Labor seat of Auburn at the 1988 election on the retirement of Wran government minister Peter Cox. He was re-elected in 1991, 1995 and 1999, before retiring mid-term in 2001, resulting in a by-election that was won by Labor candidate Barbara Perry.^[1]

Early life and education

Peter Nagle was born in Sydney, Australia in 1946 of both Irish and British heritage. His father was Hylton Joseph Nagle and his mother Veronica Ellen (Nelly) Nagle, nee Amos. He has two sisters, Carmel and Mary and three brothers, Paul. John and Stephen. His grandmother on his mother’s side was Mary Hotham, and he is the great great great grandson of Sir Charles Hotham of the Ballarat Eureka Stockade fame. He attended St Peter Chanel Primary School Berala and then St Benedict’s Marist Brothers. At 14 years of age, he left High School and gained employment with the then Postmaster General Department as a telegram boy. Thereafter, he became a postman, mail sorter, storeman, stores branch junior, clerical assistant, and by the end of 1966, he was a third division clerk in the Sydney office of the Deputy Crown Solicitors office.

Early Tertiary Education:

With no real education to advance him in life and having been told by an employment teacher with the of Department of Labour that he was only suitable to be a bread carter or a house painter, in 1965, he started attending evening college at Cleveland Street High School. In 1966 he passed the NSW Leaving Certificate; but could not get into any University because he had not matriculated. He worked in Papua New Guinea (1968-1970) and by 1970 was admitted to Macquarie University to do an arts degree. By the age of 33 years he left Macquarie University with a Bachelor of Arts with four majors; and a Bachelor of Legal Studies. Over that time he also studied and received a Diploma of Labour Relations and the Law and a Diploma of Law, from Sydney University.

Middle working life.

In 1969 he leaves the Commonwealth Government and becomes a union organizer and then Assistant Secretary of the Australian Musicians Union and he, in 1974, begins being a casual Tertiary and Further Education (TAFE) teacher teaching law (1974-1982) and is a qualified taxation agent(1976 to 1981), a Solicitor (1979-1981), Barrister (1981-2017), a state MP (1988-2001) and a teacher of Law in the School of Business Law and Taxation at the University of New South Wales (2002 to 2006) and re-engages as a solicitor in 2017.

Political and Trade Union role.

On the first day he starts work in 1961, he joins the Australian Postal Workers Union he meets Fred Richardson the father of Nagle’s lifelong friend ex-senator Graham Richardson and also he joins the Regents Park branch of the Australian Labor Party (ALP) and two important events occur in his life; firstly he meets the future Prime Minister of Australia Paul Keating and it is Keating who takes Nagle forward into youth politics and he also meets Dr. Lennard (Lennie) Harrison a young Laborite and medical student and later in life a leading Melbourne specialists who tutored and educated Nagle to pass the 1966 leaving certificate. In 1969 he is employed by the Australian Musician Union.At 24 years of age he retires from the Union and goes full time to Macquarie University. In 1970 he is also elected to Auburn Municipal Council for six years as a councillor and then retires from the Council in 1966 to continue on with his University studies and his father Hylton Nagle takes his place and becomes a councillor on Auburn Council for a further six years.In 1979 he becomes a Solicitor and in 1981 he is called to the New South Wales Supreme Court and High Court of Australia/Federal Court Barristers’ legal Bar. Yet in1987, a pre-selection for Parliament occurs within the ALP on the retirement of the then member Mr Peter Cox and Nagle and his then wife Janine become a media sensation when in the ALP pre-selection for the seat of Auburn Nagle’s Janine nominates against her husband Nagle and with such a move the media go on a frenzy spree and Janine becomes an overnight sensation when she appears on the front page of every newspaper in Australia and on national television programs. Nagle wins the pre-selection by a land slide and in 1988 he is elected to the New South Wales legislative Assembly with a two party preferred vote 58%; but when he retires in 2001 because of ill health; his two party preferred vote is 74.9%. In 1990 and 1994 whilst in opposition in the Legislative Assembly, Nagle manages to save the jobs, families and in some cases the lives of many many thousands independent Lorry Owner Drivers by persuading both Houses of the New South Wales Parliament that these Lorry Owner Drivers and their family needed help. The second Bill that was eventually passed into law was named “The Lorry Owners Contract of Carriage Determination Act” was and still istoday,commonly called in the New South Wales transport industry “The Nagle Bill”. In Parliament he serves as a member on the Joint Parliamentary Committee that over sighting the Independent Commission Against Corruption and in 2005 is elected as its Chairman.In 1996 he is elected by his Labor Legislative Assembly colleagues as chairman of the New South Wales Legislative Assembly’s Ethics Committee and jointly with some of his colleagues and three independent citizen representatives,writes the first code of conduct for members of the NSW Legislative Assembly. He further chairs the ALP’s Centre Unity right group’s faction caucus and sits on a number of ALP ministers’ legislative committees and on two of them as its chairman. Because of false allegations of corruption made against Nagle by some his electorate staff in 1999,he is forced to resign as a chairman of the Joint Parliamentary Committee on the ICAC and takes up the chairmanship of the New South Wales Regulations Review Committee and from that position he is elevated as chairman to the National and New Zealand Regulation and Scrutiny of legislation Committees’ as its national chairman and retiring on the 13th June 2001 from that position and from the Parliament.

International Organisations

In 1996 he is elected as the Australasian and Pacific Islander representative on the first International Anti-Corruption Conference World Council of which he is one of the founding members. He is elected a year later as the Chairman of the International Anti-Corruption Conference World Council. He remains as Chairman for two years and retires as such at the 4th International Conference in Peru; but remains on the Council until 2000 when in Durban South Africa he retires from the Council as the Australasian and Pacific Island representative passing the baton onto the Honourable Justice Barry O’Keefe.

Legal role in the community

(1988-2016)Nagle remains a Barrister; but retires from the Bar and then returns to finish off his legal career as a solicitor (2017-2018).In 1981 the most favored football game in New South Wales is rugby league which at the time was a Sydney metropolitan league competition. Many suburban teams were in the competition including Newtown and the Western Suburbs leagues club (the Magpies). The west team covered the areas in which Nagle lived and that Nagle and his brothersat one time or another played in various rugby league team sports. In 1982 the Wests Magpies with the Newtown league’s club were removed from the metropolitan league competition by the New South Wales Rugby League Executive. However. Newtown acceptedits removal from the metropolitan league competition and Wests did not and as Nagle is a Barrister at the time he is instructed by the Wests Magpies executive to take legal action against the controlling New South Wales Rugby League Executive. The case becomes known as Wade -v- The New South Wales Rugby League and Wests win a number of court actions and in 1984; the matter is finally determined in the High Court of Australia; wherein the Australian High Court sitting in Adelaidein South Australia find against West.Wests finally lost its bid to remain in the “Sydney Metropolitan League”. However and because Wests had fought so valiantly to stay in the league; the controlling Rugby League Executive resolved that Wests should be retained in the competition and wherein it still remains today playing rugby league.

Nagle as a court litigant and lawyer

However, when Nagle was first elected into the New South Wales Parliament in 1988; he hired a women to be his electorate secretary and who over time brought her two daughters and two other women into his office to work. In 1999, this women left Nagle and sued the then Speaker of the Legislative Assembly. This women and her daughters and the two other women made serious allegations against Nagle. The matter went to the New South Wales Independent Corruption Commission for investigation wherein in March 1999 it cleared Nagle of the allegations of these women; but in the mean-time sections of the media defamed Nagle and he took four separate legal actions in defamation and the most famous case was Nagle v Fairfax Publishing Pty Ltd. The case took about four years to come to trail and after and in anon and off hearing for six weeks Nagle won and was awarded damages and legal costs on an indemnity basis. The other three actions were ultimately settled in mediation with then Sir Laurence Street as mediator and thereafter the legal action Nagle took against his former electorate secretary was also settled. Nagle was prominent in the law for many years doing interesting and successful cases on behalf of clients and was noted by at least one District Court judge for the pro bono cases that he conducted and his Honour said “Nagle acts in true traditions of the Bar”. He did many cases pro-bono for clients.

Personal life:

Nagle has been married twice and has four children, two from each marriage. His eldest from his first marriage to Janene, Greer, is a television Producer and Anthony, is a Commander in the Royal Australian Navy. His two from his marriage to Karen are Nicholas, who is doing a Master’s degree in teaching and Alexander, who will be attending University in 2019. He is also a grandfather to three children and four step-grandchildren; Riley and Georgia Nagle and Kirsty, Hannah, Arianna, Joshua and Peyton Bolomey.

His perceived and his real contribution in Parliament are

Nagle scared some of his ALP colleagues because of his reputation as a fighter for the little end of town and not the big end of town, when those few in his own party felt that they needed to rely upon the Big End of Town for their political fortunes. He is never made a Minister and from his history one would come to know why and he was accused by some of colleagues of not being a team player; but he responded by saying “I’ve seen the team.”And then and wherein Nagle retires in 2001 as an MP because of ill health. He has second heart attack on Christmas day 2001. Between 2000 and 2018 he has had a heart bi-pass and now has 15 stents in his heart and has had a small bout of cancer and other medical aliments; but continues to work at the age 72 year, not much work admittedly.

1970-2018, Power Seekers-the Harris trilogy.

In 1970 Nagle, while living in Papua New Guinea, decides to write a fictional book about fictional people in politics and not about politics itself and does define a caring world of some parliamentarians as opposed to the opportunistic world of some politicians. He penned the title to the book in 1978 as “Power Seekers”, which remains the title today. The book is a trilogy. Book One is called: ”The way to Power” and Book two is: “In Power” and Book 3 is “Out of Power,” Power Seekers, Book one “The way to Power”begins the life, times and adventures of one man Richard Harris then aged 32 year through his life to 68 years. Harris a man with a common name but an uncommon nature. This book is purely fictional as to persons, institutions, times and places. It is about a man, not a person, who is ruthlessly ambitious, a Catholic believer (but not too religious) and a true follower of “Jong’s” synchronicity philosophy. “Power Seekers” takes the reader into a world of ruthless people, friends, envy, jealousy, ambition, treachery, hatred, love, disloyalty, lust and into the wealth and power of the “Big End of Town” and their extensive influence on all political parties and to the inner thoughts ofthe real leader of Australia; the boss of all bosses and therein lay the reader’s journey into the light. There will be some who read Nagle’s book and may think this book is based upon them fully or in part or about their lives or the lives of real people as a character; but as the Nagle says in the forward:: “….this view is wrong; but if, they still hold this view to be true, they are advised of Carley Simon’s song “You’re so vain if you think this book is about you.”

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