Gary Johns

The Honourable Gary Johns
Johns in 1994
Vice-President of the Executive Council
In office 25 March 1994 – 11 March 1996
Preceded by	Frank Walker
Succeeded by	John Moore
Member of the Australian Parliament for Petrie
In office 11 July 1987 – 2 March 1996
Preceded by	John Hodges
Succeeded by	Teresa Gambaro
Personal details
Born	Gary Thomas Johns (1952-08-29) 29 August 1952 Melbourne, Victoria
Nationality	Australian
Political party	Labor
Alma mater	Monash University
Occupation	Writer

Gary Thomas Johns (born 29 August 1952) is an Australian writer and politician. He was a member of the House of Representatives from 1987 to 1996, holding the Queensland seat of Petrie for the Australian Labor Party (ALP). He served as a minister in the Keating government.

Early life

Johns was born in Melbourne on 29 August 1952. He is the youngest of four sons born to Doris (née Thompson) and Claude Johns; his father was a painter and decorator. He holds a Bachelor of Economics and Master of Arts from Monash University. He tutored in geography at Melbourne State College.

Political career

Johns joined the ALP in 1972. He worked as an organiser with the national secretariat of the ALP from 1978 to 1982, working under national secretaries David Combe and Bob McMullan.

Johns was elected as the member for Petrie in 1987, and held it for the Australian Labor Party until his defeat in 1996. He served as Assistant Minister for Industrial Relations from December 1993 and Special Minister of State and Vice-President of the Executive Council from March 1994 until the defeat of the Keating government in 1996, in which he lost his seat to Liberal candidate Teresa Gambaro.

Later career

Since his defeat, Johns has drifted from the ALP and has been critical of his old party. Johns told Brett Evans that he might still be a member of the ALP but Evans says that in Johns' heart he has moved on from the ALP. Johns now describes himself as a "small-l liberal".

From 1997 to 2006, he was a senior fellow at the neo-liberal/conservative think tank the Institute of Public Affairs (IPA). He was head of the Non-Government Organisations unit within the IPA. From 2006-2009, Johns worked with a consultancy firm, ACIL Tasman. In 2009, he was appointed Associate Professor of Public Policy at the Australian Catholic University's Public Policy Institute. In 2012, he was appointed a visiting fellow at QUT Business School. He has been an adjunct professor at the University of Queensland. He was president of the Bennelong Society, an organisation that advocated the provision of welfare for Indigenous Australians under the same rules as for all other Australians. From 2002 to 2004, he was appointed Associate Commissioner of the Commonwealth Productivity Commission, an Australian government policy research and advisory body, with the responsibility for an inquiry into the national workers' compensation and occupational health and safety framework.

He was awarded a PhD in political science in 2001 from the University of Queensland, in 2002 the Fulbright Professional Award in Australian-United States Alliance Studies, Georgetown University in Washington D.C., and in 2003 the Centenary Medal for ‘service to Australian society through the advancement of economic, social and political issues'.

He has been a columnist for The Australian newspaper and the author of numerous papers and books. He writes for The Spectatorand Quadrant. His latest book is The Burden of Culture

In 2017, Johns was appointed by the Turnbull government as the commissioner of the Australian Charities and Not-for-profits Commission. He resigned in June 2022 following the Albanese Government's election to office.

In 2023, Johns was chairman of Recognise a Better Way, a group arguing the "No" case regarding the Albanese government's proposal for Indigenous Voice to Parliament.

Bibliography

Books

• Waking up to Dreamtime: The illusion of Aboriginal self-determination. Singapore: Media Masters. 2001.
• Aboriginal Self-determination: The Whiteman's Dream. Connor Court, 2011.
• Right Social Justice. Connor Court, 2012.
• Really Dangerous Ideas. Connor Court, 2013.
• Recognize What? Connor Court, 2014.
• The Charity Ball. Connor Court, 2014.
• No Contraception, No Dole: Tackling Intergenerational Welfare. Connor Court, 2016.
• Throw Open the Doors: The World Health Organization Framework Convention on Tobacco Control. Connor Court, 2016.
• "Your Body Belongs to the Nation" & Other Public Health Lobby Errors. Connor Court, 2016.
• The Burden of Culture. Quadrant Books, 2022.

References

• "Search Results | author:"Johns, Gary Thomas, 1952-"". National Library of Australia. 2 May 2021. Archived from the original on 2 May 2021.

Further reading

• Young, Graham (21 September 2019). "Throw open the doors - book review". Australian Institute for Progress. Archived from the original on 26 March 2020.