The Hon Bill Hayden AC (b. 1933) was Governor-General of Australia from 1989 to 1996 and Leader of the Opposition from 1977 to 1983. After serving in the Queensland Police Force, at the age of 28 Hayden was elected Labor member for the Federal seat of Oxley in 1961, a seat he held until 1988. As a government minister he held a number of senior portfolios including Foreign Affairs Minister, Treasurer and Social Security Minister, where he introduced the single mother’s pension and Medibank, the precursor to Medicare. During his career he openly supported marriage equality and voluntary euthanasia. In the late 1990s Hayden joined the board of Quadrant, a literary, cultural and political journal, and wrote opinion pieces for Australian newspapers and magazines. He was named Australian Humanist of the Year in 1996 and made a life member of the Australian Labor Party in 2007. A former atheist, Hayden was baptised in 2018 at the age of 85.
The National Portrait Gallery is temporarily closed to the public until further notice.
