When Quigley was elected attorney general in 2017, he sought Martin’s notes again — this time on overhauling the state’s laws.
The 76-year-old father of five ditched the speech notes penned by his media minder, fearing they read too much like a “vanity project”, to share his candid reflections on the moments that had punctuated his distinguished career in law and politics as he prepares to retire in March 2025.
Quigley made his foray into politics in 2001 after having a profound realisation while representing the widow of detective Sergeant Geoffrey Bowen, who was murdered after a bombing in the National Crime Authority office in Adelaide.
“I realised that if you wanted to take on organised crime and stem the flow of crime at a serious level, you couldn’t do it at the bar table, you had to take the risk, resign and go into public life,” he said.
He said he had a “full circle moment” in the months before calling time on his 24-year political career after being embraced by the brother of John Pat, the 16-year-old Indigenous boy who died in Roebourne in 1983 after a brawl with off-duty police officers Quigley successfully defended at trial.
On the 40th anniversary of Pat’s death, Quigley said he was invited back to attend a memorial concert held in his honour — something he said felt much like recognition of the work he had done to ensure justice, including overhauling the unpaid fines laws unfairly impacting Aboriginal people.
“I felt that as attorney general, it was an affirmation that I was on the right track of trying to deliver justice to all people equally before the law,” he told the breakfast.
His service to the WA Police Union over two decades earned him an honourary life membership, but that was revoked in 2007 after he named an undercover police officer involved in the wrongful conviction of Andrew Mallard over the death of jeweller Pamela Lawrence in 1994.
Andrew Mallard walks out of Casuarina prison with John Quigley.Credit: file image
After Mallard had his murder conviction quashed by the High Court and the Corruption and Crime Commission launched a probe into the police, the union voted to strip Quigley of the membership.
Quigley infamously declared his plan to melt down his life membership badge and gift it to Mallard with the words “Veritas Vincit”, meaning “Truth Conquers”.
“I used to tell the jury that you can try to submerge the truth, but like an air filled balloon underwater it will always pop back up,” he said.
“And it was true. [Mallard] was innocent, and the police were corrupt.”
He also reflected on other enemies he had made during his career in law and politics, from prominent WA bikies to former SAS soldier David Everett — who he claimed left him an extortion note at his home in 2011.
Quigley’s anti-consorting laws preventing bikies from socialising or wearing their patches placed him on the wrong side of Mongols bikie Troy Mercanti, who wore a t-shirt to court in 2023 with the attorney-general’s likeness alongside the words “Mr Squigley, Fcuk your laws”.
But his parliamentary career has been punctuated by several scandals, none more well-publicised than having his testimony branded “confused and confusing” and “all over the shop” by the Federal Court during his defamation battle with mining magnate Clive Palmer in 2022.
The court case saw a string of embarrassing messages Quigley had sent then-premier Mark McGowan over a bill to stop Palmer from suing the state for tens of billions of dollars thrown into the public arena, from calling the billionaire a “Big Fat Liar” to revealing he was thinking about defeating Palmer instead of “making love in the sweet hours before dawn”.
The court ruling made national headlines and prompted calls for Quigley’s resignation.
But the attorney general defended his handling of the legislation and his conduct, playing off the correspondence as “a bit of humour with the boss” that he never imagined would become public.
“I know my own weaknesses and my own foibles and I regard myself as the same as everybody else … walking worm food,” he said.
Quigley announcing his retirement alongside WA Premier Roger Cook.Credit: Hamish Hastie
“While I’m still here, I try to do a good, and with a bit of humour … I never dreamt it would be subpoenaed and then on the front page of every paper around Australia.”
Quigley also addressed his public battle with T-cell lymphoma and the eastern states medical trial that temporarily made him ill but ultimately saved his life.
He said the experience had a profound effect on him and taught him patience.
While candid in his interview, Quigley declined to give away what his life may hold beyond the March 2025 election.
“The parliament has got to refresh, and you’ve got to be able to know when to call time on yourself … I think that’s an obligation of good leaders,” he said.
“I use the ‘r’ word, the retirement word, but I’m not retiring from work or life.
“I don’t know what’s next in my chapter. It’s for others to judge whether I have still got the mental acuity and physical vigor to go on, but I certainly want to.”
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