Michael Egan: Tragedy as major NSW political figure dies aged 75

The longest-serving treasurer in NSW has died aged 75.

Michael Egan was Labor treasurer from April 1995 to 2005 under the state’s longest continuously serving premier, Bob Carr.

He was the first Treasurer to serve from the House of Lords.

Unusually for a Labor treasurer, Mr Egan presided over nine consecutive budget surpluses, with Mr Carr determined to demonstrate that Labor could be good economic managers after the state-owned banking disasters in Victoria and South Australia.

New South Wales Premier Chris Minns and his Treasurer Daniel Mookhey – both from the Labor Right faction – have remembered Mr Egan for his long career serving the people of NSW.

“NSW has lost a dedicated and experienced public servant, the Honorable Michael Egan AO,” they said on Thursday.

Mr Egan’s political career began in October 1978 when he won the Sutherland Shire seat of Cronulla, leaving him as the electorate’s only beachside Labor MP to date in a usually ultra-safe Liberal seat.

That was the election in which Neville Wran’s re-elected Labor government won the usually safe Liberal seats of Manly on Sydney’s northern beaches and Willoughby on the lower north coast when the coalition was destroyed.

Mr Egan, from the right-wing Labor group, moved to the Legislative Council after losing Cronulla in 1984, which was also Wran’s last campaign.

He became treasurer when Labor returned to power in 1995 after seven years in the political wilderness, during the years when Liberal leaders Nick Greiner and John Fahey were in charge.