Great Depression and Aftermath Cold War New Left Contemporary Active Historical Wilfred George Petersen (13 May 1921 – 28 March 2000) was an Australian politician, affiliated with the Labor Party and elected as a member of the New South Wales Legislative Assembly.

[3] Transferred to a job with the Department of Social Security in Wollongong, New South Wales, in 1957, he soon joined the Australian Labor Party inspired by the Trotskyist method of entryism.

However, despite support from the Attorney General, Frank Walker, Young Labor, and public opinion polls that supported reform, it was defeated by the Catholic-dominated majority right faction of NSW Labor from inclusion before the act's introduction and prevented from being included for debate in the Legislative Assembly by the Speaker, Laurie Kelly, who ruled it out of order.

[6] Undeterred, in November 1981, Petersen introduced a private members bill which sought to decriminalise homosexual acts in NSW as well as equalise the age of consent to 16.

In response to the Leader of the National Party, Leon Punch's comments that the bill was an "outrageous and smutty epitaph" which would assist in the "collapse of civilisation through the breakdown of spiritual values", Peterson retorted: "your case is one of blind, homophobic prejudice which takes no account of reality or humanity.

"[13] In 1987 the Unsworth Labor government capitulated to demands from the insurance industry that the compensation benefits paid to injured workers must be cut.

[14] Petersen refused to support it and crossed the floor to vote against the government's Workers Compensation Act, which he described as "vicious, anti-working class legislation".

[17] Despite his defeat, Petersen continued to advocate for various issues in public life, including the campaign to prevent development of Shellharbour Beach and opposition to Australia's involvement in the 1991 Gulf War.