Donald Robert Willesee (14 April 19169 September 2003) was an Australian politician. He was a member of the Australian Labor Party (ALP) and served as a Senator for Western Australia from 1950 to 1975. He held ministerial office in the Whitlam Government as Special Minister of State (1972–1973) and Minister for Foreign Affairs (1973–1975). He also served as Leader of the Opposition in the Senate from 1966 to 1967. Early life Willesee was born in Derby, Western Australia, to Ethel May (née Flinders) and William Robert Willesee, who were originally from South Australia. His older brother, Bill Willesee, was a state parliamentarian. Willesee was educated at state and convent schools at Carnarvon in the same state. He left school at 14 (his father and brother had lost their jobs during the Great Depression), to work as a postal clerk in Carnarvon, and immediately joined the Australian Union of Postal Clerks and Telegraphists. He eventually became state secretary of this organisation. He later worked as a telegraphist in Perth. In 1940 he married Gwendoline Clarke. Political career Willesee joined the Australian Labor Party when he was 21 and was elected as a senator for Western Australia in 1950 at the age of 33, taking office as the Senate's youngest member. He worked with Whitlam to reform the Labor Party prior to the 1972 election. According to Kim Beazley he was a "... key assistant to Gough Whitlam as he set about the task of restructuring the Labor Party ... and made an intelligent, brilliant rabble fit for government." Following the 1972 election, Willesee was appointed as Special Minister of State, Vice-President of the Executive Council, Minister assisting the Prime Minister and Minister assisting the Minister for Foreign Affairs in the second Whitlam Ministry (which followed the "two-man Ministry" from 5 to 19 December 1972). As Special Minister of State he endorsed the establishment of a computerised library information system to connect national, state and university libraries, which has continued to evolve. Whitlam relinquished the position of Minister for Foreign Affairs to him on 30 November 1973 and in this period he had the major responsibility of implementing the Whitlam government's, ambitious new foreign policy directions, which included improving relations with Asia. For Willesee, this meant Australia taking a more pragmatic approach to international affairs; in a speech to the Australian Institute of International Affairs in June 1974 he declared: "the first