The former New South Wales senator and Labor party powerbroker, Graham “Richo” Richardson, has died aged 76.

His death was announced on Saturday morning.

The former political powerbroker – a senator for NSW between 1983 and 1994 – had battled worsening health problems for several years. He was first diagnosed with cancer more than a quarter-of-a-century ago.

Richardson became NSW Labor’s general secretary at just 27, at a time when intraparty machinations were marked by violence.

Richardson was just 33 when he was elected senator for NSW, in the 1983 election that brought Bob Hawke to power. After the 1987 election, he was promoted to minister for the environment, and later held posts in cabinet including the portfolios of sport and social security.

Richardson was seen as a key architect of the toppling of Hawke as prime minister, in favour of Paul Keating, in 1991.

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Throughout his career, Richardson was regarded as a ruthless powerbroker in the right faction of the Labor party. He was unofficially known as “minister for kneecaps”, such was his reputation as party room enforcer.

The former health minister Neal Blewett described him as an “Antipodean Machivaelli” and “the arch proponent of vested interests”. The former foreign minister Gareth Evans said Richardson’s willingness to do “whatever it takes … was not always a recipe for good, principled government”.

Richardson’s autobiography, published in 1994 when he resigned from the Senate, was entitled Whatever It Takes.

While Richardson was involved in numerous scandals throughout his career, he was never found guilty of any misdemeanour.

He appeared before two royal commissions: over party donations; and answering allegations by a prostitute (later recanted) about sex on a boat in Sydney harbour. The 1991 Marshall Islands Affair – in which it was alleged Richardson used his ministerial position to help his cousin – ultimately forced his resignation from cabinet. He spent the remainder of his parliamentary career on the backbench.

Richardson was linked to a prostitution ring in 1994, and made a settlement with the tax office in 2008 over an undisclosed Swiss bank account.

Richardson served as a board member on the Sydney Organising Committee for the Olympic Games, including a role as mayor of the athlete’s village during the 2000 Games.

He later made a reputation as an unapologetically firebrand media commentator.

The journalist Marian Wilkinson wrote a book on Richardson called The Fixer in 1996.

She wrote: “He was not a politician who believed in the rigid lines of black and white; he operated between those lines. He would say: if it wasn’t going to put him in jail, it wasn’t wrong. It was this attitude, too, that gave Richardson the winning edge. But it also brought his political career to the brink of disaster on more than one occasion.”

Richardson was made an Officer of the Order of Australia in 2020.

He was married twice, first to Cheryl Gardner, with whom he had two children. He had another son with his second wife, Amanda, whom he married in 2007.

More details soon …