William John Gordon ( – 25 November 2022) was an Indigenous Australian politician. He was a member of the

Queensland Legislative Assembly The Legislative Assembly of Queensland is the sole chamber of the unicameral Parliament of Queensland established under the Constitution of Queensland. Elections are held every four years and are done by full preferential voting. The Assembly h ...

from 2015 to 2017, representing the electorate of

Cook Cook or The Cook may refer to: Food preparation * Cooking, the preparation of food * Cook (domestic worker), a household staff member who prepares food * Cook (profession), an individual who prepares food for consumption in the food industry * C ...

Career

Hailing from

Innisfail, Queensland Innisfail (from Irish language, Irish: Inis Fáil) is a regional town and Suburbs and localities (Australia), locality in the Cassowary Coast Region, Queensland, Australia. The town was originally called Geraldton until 1910. In the , the town o ...

, Gordon first entered politics as the Labor candidate in the federal seat of Leichhardt for the 2013 election, losing to Liberal National incumbent

Warren Entsch Warren George Entsch (born 31 May 1950) is an Australian politician who was a long-serving member of the House of Representatives for a total of 26 years, from 1996 to 2007 and from 2010 to 2025, representing the Division of Leichhardt. He is a ...

. However, he increased his profile enough that he was able to successfully stand in the state seat of Cook, essentially the far northern portion of the federal seat. Gordon was elected as a

Labor Labour or labor may refer to: * Childbirth, the delivery of a baby * Labour (human activity), or work ** Manual labour, physical work ** Wage labour, a socioeconomic relationship between a worker and an employer ** Organized labour and the labour ...

candidate at the

2015 election Africa * 2015 Beninese parliamentary election 26 April 2015 * 2015 Burkinabé general election 29 November 2015 * 2015 Burundian legislative election 29 June 2015 * 2015 Burundian presidential election 21 July 2015 * 2015-16 Central African g ...

before becoming an

independent Independent or Independents may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Artist groups * Independents (artist group), a group of modernist painters based in Pennsylvania, United States * Independentes (English: Independents), a Portuguese artist ...

two months later. He retired at the 2017 election. Gordon was one of the first

Indigenous Indigenous may refer to: *Indigenous peoples *Indigenous (ecology) In biogeography, a native species is indigenous to a given region or ecosystem if its presence in that region is the result of only local natural evolution (though often populari ...

Queensland state MPs in a generation.

Controversy

In 2015, Gordon was sacked by the Labor Party following disclosures of a criminal record dating back to 1980. In 2015, tip offs to the media led to Gordon publicly disclosing a criminal history dating back to the 1980s that he had not disclosed to his colleagues including driving offences, break and entering offences, breach of

bail Bail is a set of pre-trial restrictions that are imposed on a suspect to ensure that they will not hamper the judicial process. Court bail may be offered to secure the conditional release of a defendant with the promise to appear in court when ...

and probation, and an

apprehended violence order An injunction is an equitable remedy in the form of a special court order compelling a party to do or refrain from doing certain acts. It was developed by the English courts of equity but its origins go back to Roman law and the equitable remed ...

taken out by his mother. Gordon's former de facto partner accused him of

domestic violence Domestic violence is violence that occurs in a domestic setting, such as in a marriage Marriage, also called matrimony or wedlock, is a culturally and often legally recognised union between people called spouses. It establishes r ...

and routinely not filing

tax return A tax return is a form on which a person or organization presents an account of income and circumstances, used by the tax authorities to determine liability for tax. Tax returns are usually processed by each country's tax authority, known as ...

s to avoid

child support Child support (or child maintenance) is an ongoing, periodic payment made by a parent for the financial benefit of a child (state or parent, caregiver, guardian) following the end of a marriage or other similar relationship. Child maintenance is ...

payments to his five children. In response Premier

Annastacia Palaszczuk Annastacia Palaszczuk ( , born 25 July 1969) is an Australian politician who served as the 39th premier of Queensland from 2015 to 2023. She held office as the leader of the Queensland branch of the Australian Labor Party (ALP) from 2012 unt ...

expelled Gordon from the Labor caucus, and asked the state party's organisational wing to have Gordon expelled from the party altogether. Although Palaszczuk was well aware that the loss of Cook could potentially have put her premiership in jeopardy, she said that given the circumstances, she had no other choice. In September 2015,

Queensland Police The Queensland Police Service (QPS) is the principal law enforcement agency responsible for policing the Australian state of Queensland. In 1990, the Queensland Police Force was officially renamed the Queensland Police Service and the old motto ...

dropped the domestic violence charges against Gordon, citing insufficient evidence to prosecute. On the same day, police charged a woman with extortion for allegedly attempting to blackmail Gordon by claiming he had sent her an explicit image by SMS. Gordon was charged with drink driving and unlicensed driving on 1 June 2016 while pulled over at a random traffic stop on the

Kennedy Highway The Kennedy Highway is a highway in northern Queensland, Australia. It runs as National Route 1 for approximately 243 km from Smithfield, on the northern outskirts of Cairns, to the Gulf Developmental Road in the vicinity of Forty Mile Sc ...

at Kuranda, on the

Atherton Tableland The Atherton Tableland is a fertile plateau, which is part of the Great Dividing Range in Queensland, Australia. It has very deep, rich basaltic soils and the main industry is agriculture. The principal river flowing across the plateau is the B ...

west of Cairns. He was taken to the Kuranda police station and allegedly returned a blood-alcohol content reading of 0.094. On 1 July 2016, Gordon pleaded guilty to both charges in the Brisbane Magistrates Court. He was fined $750 and disqualified from driving for four months.

Retirement

Gordon retired from politics at the 2017 election, having confirmed that he would not recontest his seat on 31 October 2017 following the calling of the election. Gordon died on 25 November 2022, aged 49.Former State MP Billy Gordon dead
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References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Gordon, Billy Year of birth missing 1970s births 2022 deaths Members of the Queensland Legislative Assembly Indigenous Australian politicians People from Innisfail, Queensland Australian Labor Party members of the Parliament of Queensland Australian politicians convicted of crimes Independent members of the Parliament of Queensland 21st-century Australian politicians