Ian Wilson (politician)

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Ian Wilson (politician) bigraphy, stories - Australian politician

Ian Wilson (politician) : biography

2 May 1932 – 2 April 2013

Ian Bonython Cameron Wilson AM (2 May 1932 – 2 April 2013), solicitor, company director and Australian politician, was born in Adelaide, South Australia, the son of Sir Keith Wilson, a prominent United Australia Party and Liberal Party politician. His mother, Elizabeth, (Lady Betty Wilson CBE), was a granddaughter of Sir John Langdon Bonython, owner of The Advertiser and a member of the first federal House of Representatives, and a great-granddaughter of Sir John Cox Bray, South Australia’s first native-born premier.

Wilson was educated at St Peter’s College and Adelaide University, where he graduated in law, and at Magdalen College, Oxford (S.A. Rhodes Scholar 1955), where he did a higher law degree. He was a solicitor and company director before entering politics.

In 1966, Wilson was elected to the House of Representatives for the Adelaide seat of Sturt, which his father had held with one break since 1949. It was considered a fairly safe Liberal seat, but at the 1969 election there was a strong swing to Labor in South Australia, and Wilson was unexpectedly defeated by Norm Foster, a waterside worker. In the 1972 election, after spending a great deal of family money, Wilson regained the seat, and thereafter held it without difficulty for over 20 years.

Wilson was typical of upper-class South Australian Liberals in being relatively moderate on most issues. He was a serious Anglican and active in many charitable and social welfare groups. This did not make him popular with the more conservative wing of the party. When the Liberals came to power under Malcolm Fraser in 1975, he was passed over for the ministry, in favour of the more conservative John McLeay.

In 1981 McLeay was dropped from the ministry and Wilson was appointed Minister for Home Affairs and the Environment. In 1982 he was shifted to Aboriginal Affairs, a notoriously unpopular portfolio in Liberal governments. He held this position until the defeat of the Liberal government in 1983. He was not included in the Opposition Shadow Ministry after the elections, and remained as a backbencher. He retired at the 1993 election, after losing Liberal pre-selection to Christopher Pyne.

Wilson died in Adelaide on 2 April 2013, aged 80.