Nicolas Pierre Goiran was born on 15 October 1977 and is an Australian politician who has been a member for the South Metropolitan Region of the Western Australian Legislative Council, the upper house of the Parliament of Western Australia, since 22 May 2009.
42 Facts About Nick Goiran
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Nick Goiran is pro-life, and opposes same-sex marriage, euthanasia and surrogacy.
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Nick Goiran has been outspoken on the issue of elder abuse, and while he supports vaccinations, he opposed COVID-19 vaccine mandates.
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Nick Goiran has twice been accused of filibustering: he spoke for over 22 hours in total on a surrogacy bill in 2019, delaying it until the government relented and publicly released the $225,000 report it had commissioned into surrogacy; He proposed 357 amendments to a voluntary assisted dying bill and scrutinised every clause.
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Nick Goiran, alongside fellow MLC Peter Collier, is a Liberal Party power broker.
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Nicolas Pierre Nick Goiran was born on 15 October 1977 in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia.
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Nick Goiran is the son of French immigrants Gerard and Madeleine Goiran; his father worked in the finance industry and his mother as a French teacher.
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Nick Goiran's parents were both officeholders and parliamentary candidates for the Christian Democratic Party.
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Nick Goiran attended Rehoboth Christian Primary School and Rehoboth Christian High School in the southern suburbs of Perth, Western Australia, where he graduated as dux.
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Nick Goiran studied at Murdoch University, graduating with a Bachelor of Law and Bachelor of Commerce double degree, majoring in banking and finance.
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From 1998 to 2009, Nick Goiran worked for several different law firms, and in December 2000, he was admitted to the Supreme Court of Western Australia as a barrister and solicitor.
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Nick Goiran was a board member of the Association for Christian Education from October 2001 to March 2007 and from March 2009 onwards, serving as president from April 2005 to March 2007.
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Nick Goiran met his wife Jody working as a basketball umpire while in law school.
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Nick Goiran unsuccessfully sought preselection for the safe Labor seat of Peel for the 2007 Peel state by-election.
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In February 2016, Nick Goiran replaced Simon O'Brien as the top candidate on the Liberal's South Metropolitan Region ticket for the 2017 election.
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On 23 September 2016, Nick Goiran became the first parliamentary secretary to the minister for mental health and minister for child protection.
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From February 2020, Nick Goiran was the shadow minister for commerce.
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From April 2021 to February 2023, Nick Goiran was the shadow minister to the attorney general, shadow minister for child protection, and shadow minister for industrial relations.
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In 2014 Nick Goiran began to gain power within the Liberal Party by building support within the southern suburbs of Perth.
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In May 2021, before the new Legislative Council was sworn in, Nick Goiran introduced a motion to establish a select committee into the transparency and accountability of government.
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Nick Goiran threatened legal action against the Liberal Party's state director and the authors of the report, with his lawyer saying that allegations in the report were "totally false, without basis and constitute serious defamation of him".
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Additionally, in January 2022, an investigation into Nick Goiran was launched by the party's appeals and disciplinary committee.
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The disciplinary committee found the complaints against Mr Nick Goiran had been unsubstantiated due to a lack of evidence.
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Nick Goiran refused to apologise, resulting in his removal from the shadow cabinet, making him the only member of the opposition not in the shadow cabinet.
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Nick Goiran tried to remove Goiran as the Liberal Party parliamentary secretary.
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Nick Goiran has been preselected in the second position of the Liberal Party's state-wide Legislative Council ticket.
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Nick Goiran identifies as a conservative, saying that human life should be protected "from conception until natural death, and that lifelong marriage between a man and a woman guarantees children their biological birthright of a mother and a father".
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Premier and Liberal Party leader Colin Barnett said that Nick Goiran's comments were inappropriate.
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In May 2017, Nick Goiran moved a motion for a parliamentary inquiry into elder abuse.
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Nick Goiran wanted the inquiry to consider whether elder abuse should be made into a specific offense.
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Nick Goiran has campaigned for parliament to inquire into the deaths of 27 babies born alive after attempted abortions since 1999.
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In 2017, Nick Goiran tabled in parliament a petition calling for the inquiry signed by 7,243 people.
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In 2021, Nick Goiran was one of three Legislative Council members that opposed a bill to criminalise protesting within 150 metres of abortion clinics.
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Nick Goiran opposed a 2023 bill that liberalised Western Australia's abortion laws by removing abortion from the criminal code, removing a requirement for mandatory counselling, removing the need for women to be referred for an abortion by a doctor, and increasing the gestational limit at which additional restrictions apply to abortions from 20 weeks to 23 weeks.
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On seven different occasions, Nick Goiran spoke for over two hours uninterrupted, and on one occasion, he spoke for five hours straight.
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Nick Goiran has opposed legalising euthanasia or voluntary assisted dying.
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Nick Goiran was the only member of the Joint Select Committee on End of Life Choices to oppose recommending for the government to legalise voluntary euthanasia for patients suffering from terminal illnesses, saying that it is "a recipe for elder abuse", and that it would have a negative impact on efforts to prevent suicide.
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Nick Goiran proposed 357 amendments to the bill, including that a psychiatric assessment be required for VAD patients.
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Supporters of the bill said that Nick Goiran was attempting to delay voting on it.
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Premier Mark McGowan said that Nick Goiran's behaviour was "disgraceful" and "worse than filibustering", but Nick Goiran denied that he was trying to filibuster.
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Nick Goiran has attracted criticism for being one of only two members of the Parliament of Western Australia that refuses to reveal their COVID-19 vaccination status, alongside Legalise Cannabis WA MLC Sophia Moermond.
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When Parliament passed a motion that MP's must have three doses of COVID-19 vaccines or provide a valid exemption to be in the chamber, Nick Goiran did not exit, showing that he has met those conditions.