Goff Letts

Who is Goff Letts?

Dr Godfrey Alan Letts CBE was the Majority Leader of the Northern Territory of Australia from 1974 to 1977.

Born in Donald, Victoria, Letts attended Melbourne Grammar and Melbourne and Sydney Universities, graduating with a Bachelor of Veterinary Science in 1950. Letts gained employment with the Victorian Department of Agriculture and married Joyce Crosby on 29 November 1952. Together they had three sons and three daughters.

Letts moved to the Northern Territory in 1957, initially working in Alice Springs before transferring to Darwin as the District Veterinary Officer for the Northern Region of the Northern Territory. He was appointed Director of the Animal Industry and Agriculture Branch of the Northern Territory in 1963, Chair of the Northern Territory Wildlife Council and to the Northern Territory Lands Board in 1964. Awarded a Churchill Fellowship in 1966, Letts was appointed to the Northern Territory Legislative Council in 1967 as an official member representing the Department of Lands and Primary Industry before his growing disillusionment with the bureaucratic control of the Territory from Canberra led to him resigning from these positions in 1970 to enter private industry as a vet.