[3] Welford served in a number of portfolios in the Labor governments of Premiers Peter Beattie and Anna Bligh.
Before serving as a State Minister, he had led a Ministerial Review of Sports Funding (1990–91) leading to the creation of the Queensland Academy of Sport and chaired the Government Sustainable Energy Advisory Group (1994–95), a joint government-industry committee, which undertook projects providing the foundation for subsequent government grants programs to subsidise the installation of household solar water heaters and remote area solar power systems.
For example, while responsible for the environment and natural resources portfolio, he established the Queensland Environmental Protection Agency, took action to protect biodiversity and reduce greenhouse emissions by introducing ground-breaking legislation to stem broadscale land clearing, created the first large scale water efficiency program in the nation, legislated to protect environmental health of river systems and forged a historic Regional Forest Agreement between the government, timber industry and conservation movement which secured sustainable timber production while expanding the national park estate by more than 400,000 hectares.
He was also an honorary member of the board of the International River Foundation, honorary interim board member of the National Centre of Excellence for Desalination at Murdoch University and patron of the Centre for Research, Innovation and Future Development at St Paul's School, his former high school.
He is also board chairman of the Electrogroup group of companies, a non-profit enterprise that operates a group training and apprenticeship service for the electrotechnology industry and chairman of the Energy Management Institute, a non-profit company established to train and accredit electrical contractors with skills in energy efficiency design and retrofitting.