Graham Frederick Richardson (27 September 1949 – 8 November 2025) was an Australian Labor Party politician who was a senator for New South Wales from 1983 to 1994 and served as a cabinet minister in both the Hawke and Keating governments. He was later a media commentator, public speaker and political lobbyist.
During his time in the Senate, Richardson was often referred to as a "power broker" within the Labor Right faction. Prior to entering parliament, Richardson was a Labor Party branch organiser and was the general secretary of the New South Wales branch of the party from 1976 to 1983.
After retiring from politics, Richardson became a political commentator for Sky News Australia. He had previously hosted the weekly commentary program Richo.
Graham Richardson was born in Sydney on 27 September 1949 and was the only surviving child of Frederick "Fred" James Richardson and Catherine "Peggy" Maud Richardson (née Graham), who were, respectively, the New South Wales state secretary and office manager of the Amalgamated Postal and Telecommunications Union. Raised Catholic, he was influenced as an adolescent by the factional fights that arose during the 1955 Labor split. His early years of schooling took place at St Raphael's Primary School in Hurstville and Marist College Kogarah. In November 1965, he was seriously injured in a car accident, in which his father was driving, at Tom Uglys Bridge at Dolls Point, resulting in the removal of his spleen, a torn bowel and 200 stitches to his face. His condition was so serious that he received last rites on two occasions in hospital. He later recalled:
The worst moment – not just of my adolescence but of my life – was the day they took off the bandages and I saw myself in the mirror. I cried for hours ... It made me very unsettled. It really mucked me around badly, not to the point of being psychiatrically impaired but it did me a lot of harm in terms of stability and the capacity to concentrate.
Richardson recovered however and completed his schooling at Sydney Technical High School where he passed his Leaving Certificate. From 1966, he was active in the Catholic Youth Organisation, a recruiting ground for the right wing of Young Labor, where he formed friendships with Joe Hasham, Bob Scipelliti and Brian Webb, the latter two acting as silent business partners for Richardson later in life. Motivated by the continued factional fighting impacting on his parents' life, Richardson joined the Monterey branch of the Labor Party in 1966, aged 17.
Having earlier dropped out of an arts degree in 1969, Richardson followed his mother's encouragement and commenced studies for a Bachelor of Laws at the University of Sydney. She would die suddenly at 42, distracting Richardson from his studies as he threw himself into union and Labor politics.
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 New South Wales 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 Labor Party in 1976 and general secretary a little later that year, aged 26 – the youngest ever person to hold that role. During his time as secretary, he helped secure a 13-seat increase for Neville Wran's Labor Government at the 1978 New South Wales state election. John Faulkner, of Labor's socialist left faction, was Richardson's assistant secretary for eight months; so great was their mutual hatred, they did not exchange a word.
Marrying Cheryl Gardner in 1973, Richardson described the rigours of his early married life and union work to The National Times' Alan Ramsey in October 1983:
... then we got married, lived in the unit (in Ramsgate) for a while, and had a baby. We moved to a new house a quarter of a mile away. It cost me heaps. I had a mortgage I couldn't possibly afford. I remember for over a year we had a gross income of $9,000 and I was paying $4,500 on the mortgage. That was hard, very hard. We were really struggling.
Richardson later told the Woodward Royal Commission that in 1973 he met Daniel Casey, a senior figure in Labor right-wing politics, and regarded him as a friend, drank with him at the Sackville Hotel in Rozelle, near Balmain, borrowed $2,000 from him, and paid it back by cheque in two instalments. Again, Ramsay reports Richardson as saying: Then in '76 I had this huge salary movement which made all these things (the mortgages and such) just not a problem at all."
However, Evan Whitton, a noted journalist and campaigner against organised crime, claimed that in May 1977 Richardson's wife, Cheryl, went on the payroll, at approximately $130 a week, of Casey's Balmain Welding, but did not have to attend at the office. Richardson later told the Woodward Royal Commission, it was the policy of the company not to hire office staff, so they sent the typing out to Mrs Richardson. She kept the job until about May 1979, by which time she was getting about $160 a week from Balmain Welding. Richardson's links with Casey were brought to public notice through the reconvening of the Woodward Royal Commission in 1980 due to allegations that Casey had funnelled $20,000, alleged to be a product of gambling and drugs, into the New South Wales Labor Party. Richardson told the commission on 28 March 1980 that Casey had not donated $20,000 to the Party, and the Commission found no evidence against Casey.
In his years working at Labor's Sussex Street offices, Richardson became renowned for an ability to bring in numbers; he was often referred to as a "numbers man" for the right wing of the New South Wales branch of Labor. Bill Hayden said that Richardson once explained to him: "... all decisions are democratically taken at a meeting of one; me." Richardson was highly effective in this position and became known as a "king maker"; three years after Richardson became party secretary, Paul Keating was elected unopposed as president of NSW Labor, succeeding John Ducker. Keating is believed to be the youngest president in the history of NSW Labor. Richardson was also instrumental in the 1983 coup that led to Bob Hawke succeeding Hayden as Leader of the Opposition, which ultimately led to Hawke becoming prime minister.
Enmore branch and factional fights
During Richardson's time as general secretary, there were significant battles over factional control of a number of inner city Labor branches. Peter Baldwin, a Labor member of the Legislative Council and a member of the socialist-left faction, was bashed by unknown assailants in his home on 16 July 1980. Baldwin had earlier initiated inquiries into "rorts" in the Enmore and other branches. Police began an investigation into the assault on Baldwin and included matters relating to the affairs of the Labor Party's Enmore branch. Five people, including Joe Meissner and Tom Domican, were charged with various offences. Richardson, in a later interview, confirmed that at the time he wrote to the attorney-general, Frank Walker, and all other cabinet ministers in the Wran government to ask that the case be dropped on the grounds that it was a Labor Party and not a police matter. Even the magistrate was approached. In dismissing the Enmore charges, the magistrate said: "It seems that some force or forces were working improperly to undermine the strength of the prosecution. I am firmly of the opinion that this matter calls for further investigation."
It was subsequently alleged by Meissner, who was at the time secretary of the Enmore branch of the Labor Party and one of the central figures in the controversy, that the bashing was undertaken by Domican, an underworld figure with close links to the right-wing faction of the New South Wales Labor Party, acting on suggestions from Richardson. Richardson, alleging that he had been defamed, commenced legal action that was eventually settled out of court in 2007 in Richardson's favour.