He served as Deputy Permanent Representative of Australia to the OECD from 1975 to 1978 and as the Australian High Commissioner to the West Indies from 1980 to 1982, in Jamaica.

[1] He was first elected to federal parliament at the 1983 federal election when the Labor Party, under the leadership of Bob Hawke, defeated the Liberal-National Party government which had held government under prime minister Malcolm Fraser.

He won the seat of Kingston, based in the southern suburbs of Adelaide, South Australia, defeating incumbent Liberal MP Grant Chapman.

Between 1990 and 1996, Bilney was a minister in the Labor governments of Bob Hawke and Paul Keating.

Bilney was defeated by Liberal candidate Susan Jeanes at the 1996 federal election.