1.
John Howard
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John Winston Howard, OM, AC was the 25th Prime Minister of Australia, serving from 11 March 1996 to 3 December 2007. Only Sir Robert Menzies has served in the position longer, born in Sydney, Howard was a solicitor at Clayton Utz before entering politics, having studied law at the University of Sydney. A member of the Liberal Party and former president of the Young Liberals, he first stood for office at the 1968 New South Wales state election, but lost narrowly. At the 1974 federal election, Howard was elected to the Division of Bennelong and he was promoted to cabinet in 1977, and later in the year replaced Phillip Lynch as Treasurer of Australia, remaining in that position until the defeat of Malcolm Frasers government in 1983. In 1985, Howard was elected leader of the Liberal Party for the first time and he led the Liberal–National coalition to the 1987 federal election, but lost to Bob Hawkes Labor government, and was removed from the leadership in 1989. Remaining a key figure in the party, Howard was re-elected leader in 1995, after defeating Paul Keatings Labor government in 1996, the Howard Government was re-elected at the 1998,2001 and 2004 elections. Howards actions as prime minister included new gun laws, the introduction of a nationwide value-added tax, immigration reform, Australia also contributed troops to the War in Afghanistan and the Iraq War under his government, and led the International Force for East Timor. The Howard government was defeated at the 2007 federal election, with the Labor Partys Kevin Rudd succeeding him as prime minister, Howard also lost his own seat at the election, becoming only the second prime minister to do so. John Howard is the son of Mona and Lyall Howard. His parents were married in 1925 and his eldest brother Stanley was born in 1926, followed by Walter in 1929, and Robert in 1936. Lyall Howard was an admirer of Winston Churchill, and sympathetic to the New Guard during its early years, Howards ancestors were English, Scottish and Irish. Howard was born and raised in the Sydney suburb of Earlwood and his mother had been an office worker until her marriage. His father and his grandfather, Walter Howard, were both veterans of the First AIF in World War I. They also ran two Dulwich Hill petrol stations where Howard worked as a boy, Lyall Howard died in 1955 when John was sixteen, leaving his mother to take care of John. Howard suffered an impairment in his youth, leaving him with a slight speech impediment. It also influenced him in ways, limiting his early academic performance, encouraging a reliance on an excellent memory. Howard attended the state schools Earlwood Primary School and Canterbury Boys High School, Howard won a citizenship prize in his final year at Earlwood, and subsequently represented his secondary school at debating as well as cricket and rugby. In his final year at school he took part in a show hosted by Jack Davey, Give It a Go broadcast on the commercial radio station, 2GB
2.
Kim Beazley
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Kim Christian Beazley, AC, is a former Australian diplomat and politician who was the Deputy Prime Minister of Australia from 1995 to 1996. He subsequently served as the Leader of the Australian Labor Party and Leader of the Opposition from 1996 to 2001, Beazley was a member of the Australian House of Representatives from 1980 to 2007. He was a minister in the governments of Prime Ministers Bob Hawke and Paul Keating and he then became the Leader of the Opposition and led the Labor Party through the federal elections in 1998 and 2001, both of which Labor lost. He returned to the leadership in 2005, but then retired from Parliament at the 2007 election having lost the leadership of the Labor Party to Kevin Rudd after a 2006 challenge. Beazley was Ambassador of Australia to the United States from 2010 to 2016 and he is currently the National President of the Australian Institute of International Affairs. Beazley was born in Perth, Western Australia and his father, Kim Beazley Snr, was the Labor MP for Fremantle from 1945 to 1977 and education minister in the Whitlam Government. His mother, Betty Judge, was an Australian athletics champion, Beazleys uncle, the Reverend Syd Beazley, was one of the more than 1,000 prisoners of war who died in the sinking of the SS Montevideo Maru in July 1942. Beazley contracted polio as a child, at the age of six and he was educated at Hollywood Senior High School and the University of Western Australia, where he graduated with a Bachelor of Arts and subsequently a Master of Arts. Then, on a Rhodes Scholarship, he attended Balliol College, Oxford, at Oxford, he befriended Tony Blair, who would become Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, and Geoff Gallop, later to be Premier of Western Australia. After he returned to Australia, Beazley tutored and lectured in politics at Perths Murdoch University and he was recruited to Labors right-wing faction by Graham Richardson and John Ducker, before being elected MP for the seat of Swan at the 1980 election. Beazley supports the Fremantle Dockers in the Australian Football League, Beazley became a protege of Bob Hawke, Labor leader from 1983, and in that year he was appointed Minister for Aviation in Hawkes first ministry. He was Minister for Defence, with a seat in Cabinet, in this role he was responsible for establishing the Royal Australian Navys submarine program, which was beset with some technical problems and cost over-runs. Beazley has had a lifelong interest in matters, his consequent enthusiasm for this portfolio. Beazley was then Minister for Transport and Communications, Finance, Employment, Education and Training and he supported Hawke in his leadership battles with Paul Keating in 1991, but retained his position when Keating deposed Hawke and became Prime Minister in December 1991. Beazley was Deputy Prime Minister 1995–96, Beazleys hold on Swan grew increasingly tenuous over the years. He saw his majority more than halved in 1990, and was defeated in 1993. With Labor sinking in the polls during the run-up to the 1996 election, Beazley shifted to Brand, in the 1996 election, Labor was heavily defeated by the Coalition under John Howard. Keating resigned, and Beazley was elected unopposed as Labor leader and he had the difficult task of rebuilding a party that had just suffered the second-worst defeat of a sitting government since Federation
3.
Mark Latham
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Mark William Latham is a former Australian politician. He was the leader of the Australian Labor Party and Leader of the Opposition from December 2003 to January 2005 and he led the party at the 2004 federal election. Born in Sydney, Latham attended Hurlstone Agricultural High School before going on to study economics at the University of Sydney and he was elected to the Liverpool City Council in 1987, and became mayor in 1991. Latham entered federal parliament at a 1994 by-election for the Division of Werriwa and he was included in Labors shadow cabinet after the 1996 federal election, but left the frontbench in 1998 following a dispute with the party leader, Kim Beazley. He returned to the cabinet in 2001, when Simon Crean became leader. Latham became leader of the Labor Party in December 2003, following Simon Creans resignation and he was the youngest leader of the party since Chris Watson in 1901. At the 2004 federal election, the Labor Party lost five seats and reduced its share of the vote, with the incumbent prime minister, John Howard. Latham resigned as leader in January 2005, and left parliament at the same time, after leaving politics, he published a controversial memoir, The Latham Diaries, in which he condemned the general state of political life in Australia. He has since become a prominent political commentator, from 4 December 2016, Latham begean co-hosting Outsiders on Sky News Live. Latham was born in Ashcroft, a suburb of south-western Sydney in New South Wales, while he was a student, Latham worked at the Green Valley Hotel for 2 years, and as an adviser to Labor politician John Kerin from 1980 to 1982. In 1987, he was elected to the Liverpool City Council, in Sydneys south-west, Latham played rugby union with the Liverpool Bulls club and had a stint as its president. He has also been a fan of St George Dragons rugby league club since 1968, the public works, including libraries, a pedestrian mall and public art, have been highly praised in accounts of the period. In an article in Quarterly Essay, journalist Margaret Simons, who conducted an investigation of the period. These mostly related to the drafting of the outsourcing agreements, Simons also said most of the allegations come from council members who were sacked for incompetence by the state government. On 1 June 2004, Latham told Parliament that during his time as mayor he had reduced Liverpools debt service ratio from 17 to 10 percent, which he said was less than half of western Sydneys average. He also said Liverpool had adopted a debt-retirement strategy that he claimed would have made it debt free by 2005, councillor Colin Harrington, whom Latham defeated during the mayoral elections of 1991, later said these figures were not accurate. He said the average debt-servicing ratio for western Sydney was 12.1 percent, in January 1994, Latham was elected at a by-election to the House of Representatives for the Sydney seat of Werriwa, which had been Gough Whitlams seat from 1952 to 1978. He was elected to the Opposition front bench after Labor lost the 1996 election, after the 1998 election he resigned from the front bench following a policy dispute with the opposition leader, Kim Beazley
4.
Australian Labor Party
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The Australian Labor Party is a political party in Australia. The party has been in opposition at federal level since the 2013 election, Bill Shorten has been the partys federal parliamentary leader since 13 October 2013. The party is a party with branches in each state. Labor is in government in the states of Victoria, Queensland, Western Australia, South Australia, the party competes against the Liberal/National Coalition for political office at the federal and state levels. Labors current National Platform describes the party as a social democratic party, the party of opportunity and security for working people. The ALP was not founded as a party until after the first sitting of the Australian Parliament in 1901. Nevertheless, it is regarded as descended from labour parties founded in the various Australian colonies by the labour movement in Australia. Labor is thus the countrys oldest political party, colonial labour parties contested seats from 1891, and federal seats following Federation at the 1901 federal election. Labor was the first party in Australia to win a majority in either house of the Australian Parliament, internationally, the ALP is a member of the Progressive Alliance network of social-democratic parties, having previously been a member of the Socialist International. The Australian Labor Party has its origins in the Labour parties founded in the 1890s in the Australian colonies prior to federation, Labor tradition ascribes the founding of Queensland Labour to a meeting of striking pastoral workers under a ghost gum tree in Barcaldine, Queensland in 1891. The Balmain, New South Wales branch of the party claims to be the oldest in Australia, Labour as a parliamentary party dates from 1891 in New South Wales and South Australia,1893 in Queensland, and later in the other colonies. The first election contested by Labour candidates was the 1891 New South Wales election, the major parties were the Protectionist and Free Trade parties and Labour held the balance of power. It offered parliamentary support in exchange for policy concessions, the United Labor Party of South Australia was founded in 1891, and three candidates were that year elected to the South Australian Legislative Council. The first successful South Australian House of Assembly candidate was John McPherson at the 1892 East Adelaide by-election, at the 1893 South Australian elections the ULP was immediately elevated to balance of power status with 10 of 54 lower house seats. The liberal government of Charles Kingston was formed with the support of the ULP, so successful, less than a decade later at the 1905 election, Thomas Price would form the worlds first stable Labor government. John Verran led Labor to form the states first of many majority governments at the 1910 election, in 1899, Anderson Dawson formed a minority Labour government in Queensland, the first in the world, which lasted one week while the conservatives regrouped after a split. The colonial Labour parties and the unions were mixed in their support for the Federation of Australia. They feared that federation would further entrench the power of the conservative forces, the first Labour leader and Prime Minister, Chris Watson, however, was a supporter of federation
5.
Gareth Evans (politician)
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Gareth John Evans AC, QC, is an Australian international policymaker and former politician. After leaving politics, he was President and Chief Executive Officer of the Brussels-based International Crisis Group from 2000 to 2009, on returning to Australia he was appointed in 2009 honorary professorial fellow at the University of Melbourne. Since 2010, Evans has been the Chancellor of the Australian National University and he was appointed an Honorary Professorial Fellow at the ANU in 2012. He currently is a member of the Board of Sponsors for the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, Evans was born in Melbourne, Victoria. His father was a driver, and his mother, who had been a wartime Woolworths store manager. In 2004, he was elected an Honorary Fellow of Magdalen College, from 1976 to his entry into the Parliament he practised full-time as a barrister, specialising in industrial law, and appellate argument, and became a Queens Counsel in 1983. Evans was active in civil liberties issues from his student days on, campaigning on issues such as censorship, capital punishment and he was a long-serving vice-president of the Victorian Council for Civil Liberties, and an active executive member of the Victorian Aboriginal Legal Service. He was an unsuccessful Labor candidate for the Senate in 1975, after the October 1980 election he was elected to the Opposition front bench in 1980, becoming Shadow Attorney-General. As Attorney-General, Evans undertook a large agenda for law reform on a range of issues and he immediately ran into controversy, arranging for the Royal Australian Air Force to take surveillance photos of the Franklin Dam project in Tasmania. The Hawke government was pledged to stop the project, over the objections of the Tasmanian Liberal government and this incident also led to Evans coining the expression streakers defence, which has entered the Australian vocabulary. In a demotion following this record, Hawke moved him to the less sensitive portfolio of Resources. In the two major industry portfolios he held over the five years, Evans was generally perceived as playing himself back into the government mainstream. Evans was appointed Foreign Minister in September 1988, after his predecessor Bill Hayden retired to become Governor-General and he held the position for seven years and six months, the longest-serving Labor minister in that portfolio. He became a well-known Foreign Minister and highly regarded internationally, Evans famously became the first person to drop the f-bomb in the Australian Parliament, interjecting for fucks sake during a speech by Senator Robert Hill. Despite his reputation as a negotiator he was reputed to be in possession of a short-temper with a particular intolerance for elected representatives of the Australian Greens. Evans ran into significant controversy on two issues, relations with Indonesia over East Timor and French Nuclear Tests in the Pacific. In 1993, as a member of the Keating government, Senator Evans became Leader of the Government in the Senate, replacing the retiring John Button, whose Deputy he had been since 1987. In this position he led the governments legislative agenda in the upper house, where the government did not have a majority
6.
Julia Gillard
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Julia Eileen Gillard, AC is a former Australian politician who was the 27th Prime Minister of Australia from 2010 to 2013, as leader of the Australian Labor Party. She was the first and to date only woman to hold the positions of deputy prime minister, born in Barry, Wales, in the United Kingdom, Gillard migrated with her family to Adelaide, South Australia, in 1966. She attended Mitcham Demonstration School and Unley High School, Gillard later graduated from the University of Melbourne, with a Bachelor of Laws degree and a Bachelor of Arts degree. In 1987, she joined the law firm Slater & Gordon and became a partner in 1990, specialising in industrial law. A departure from the law firm in 1996 saw Gillard serve as chief of staff to the Leader of the Opposition in Victoria John Brumby, Gillard was first elected to the Australian House of Representatives at the 1998 federal election for the seat of Lalor. Following the 2001 federal election, she was elected to the Shadow Cabinet and was given the portfolio of Population and Immigration, in 2003, she took on the responsibility for both Reconciliation and Indigenous Affairs and Health. In December 2006, when Kevin Rudd was elected as Labor Leader and became Leader of the Opposition, Gillard was elected unopposed as his deputy. On 24 June 2010, after Rudd lost the support of his party and resigned, Gillard was elected unopposed as the Leader of the Labor Party, the subsequent 2010 federal election saw the first hung parliament since the 1940 federal election. Gillard was able to form a minority government with the support of a Green MP, on 26 June 2013, after a leadership spill, Gillard lost the leadership of the Labor Party to Rudd. Her resignation as Prime Minister took effect the following day, Gillard retired from politics on 5 August 2013, before the impending federal election. Gillard released her memoirs, My Story, in September 2014. She has been on the board of the health organisation beyondblue since December 2014. In addition to her various appointments, Gillard has served as the chairwoman of the Global Partnership for Education since February 2014, Gillard was born on 29 September 1961 in the town of Barry, located in the UK country of Wales. After she suffered from bronchopneumonia as a child, her parents were advised it would aid her if they were to live in a warmer climate. This led the family to migrate to Australia in 1966, settling in Adelaide, the Gillard familys first month in Australia was spent in the Pennington Hostel, a now-closed migrant facility located in Pennington, South Australia. In 1974, eight years after they arrived, Gillard and her family became Australian citizens, as a result, Gillard held dual Australian/British citizenship until she renounced her British citizenship prior to entering the Australian parliament in 1998. Her father, John Oliver Gillard, was of English, Irish and Welsh descent, Gillards mother, Moira Gillard, worked at the local Salvation Army nursing home and currently lives in Pasadena, South Australia. Moiras ancestry is Scottish and Irish, Gillard also has a sister, Alison, who is three years older
7.
Stephen Smith (Australian politician)
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Stephen Francis Smith is a former Australian member of parliament. He was the member for Perth in the Australian House of Representatives from March 1993 to August 2013 and his last ministerial appointment was Minister for Defence, and he had previously served as Minister for Foreign Affairs and Minister for Trade. Smith was born in Narrogin, Western Australia, and was educated at CBC Highgate, the University of Western Australia and the University of London and he was a solicitor, lecturer and tutor before entering politics. He was instrumental in securing support in order for Keating to defeat Bob Hawke for the Labor Party leadership in 1991. He has been a University of Western Australia professor of law since early 2014. Stephen Smith was a member of the Opposition Shadow Ministry from March 1996 until the November 2007 elections and he was Shadow Minister for Trade 1996–97, for Resources and Energy 1997–98, for Communications 1998–2001, Health and Ageing 2001–03 and Immigration 2003–04. During the leadership crisis in the Labor Party in 2003, Smith was a prominent supporter of his fellow Western Australian, as early as 2002 his name had been mentioned as a possible future leader. He again supported Beazley in the leadership contest which followed the resignation of Mark Latham in January 2005, after the 2010 Federal election Smith was appointed to the vacant Defence portfolio, while Rudd and Craig Emerson were appointed to the Foreign Affairs and Trade ministries, respectively. Following Kevin Rudds return to the leadership of the ALP and as prime minister, Smith was appointed Winthrop Professor of International Law at the University of Western Australia on 29 April 2014. Smith proposed to get into Western Australian Legislative Assembly by being preselected in the new seat of Baldivis at the election, Stephen Smith – former W. A. A. L. P. State secretary moves to Paul Keatings staff Australian Business,5 Dec.1990, p.30 Search or browse Hansard for Stephen Smith at OpenAustralia. org
8.
Paul Keating
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Paul John Keating is an Australian politician who was the 24th Prime Minister of Australia and the Leader of the Labor Party from 1991 to 1996. Keating was appointed Treasurer by newly elected Prime Minister Hawke in 1983, although lacking any formal education in economics, Keating went on to become arguably one of the most reforming Treasurers in Australian history. In 1990 he was elected Deputy Leader of the Labor Party, Keating later challenged Hawke for the leadership in June 1991, and resigned from the ministry following defeat. Six months later he challenged Hawke again, this time successfully, Policy package, despite consistently poor government opinion polls following the effects of the early 1990s recession. After being resoundingly defeated by John Howard at the 1996 election, Keating resigned as Prime Minister, Keating grew up in Bankstown, a working-class suburb of Sydney. He was one of four born to Matthew Keating, a boilermaker and trade union representative of Irish Catholic descent. His siblings include Anne Keating, a director and businesswoman. He then worked as assistant for a trade union, having joined the Labor Party as soon as he was eligible. In 1966, he became president of NSW Young Labor, in the 1960s, Keating also managed rock band The Ramrods. Through his contacts in the unions and the NSW Young Labor Council, Keating met future senior Labor figures such as Laurie Brereton, Graham Richardson and he also developed a friendship with former New South Wales Premier Jack Lang. In 1971, he succeeded in having Lang re-admitted to the Labor Party, after Labors defeat in the election one month later, Keating was promoted to become an opposition spokesman, as an opposition spokesman, his parliamentary style was that of an aggressive debater. In 1981, he was elected president of the New South Wales Labor Party, however, by 1982, his faction had swung behind Hawke, and Keating endorsed his challenge. The formal announcement of Keatings support for Hawke was written by a fellow Labor politician, although Hayden survived the challenge, pressure continued to mount on him, and he eventually resigned in February 1983 after a poor by-election result. Hawke was elected to him, and he subsequently led Labor to a landslide victory in the election just six weeks later. Following Labors victory in the 1983 election, Keating was appointed Treasurer of Australia by Prime Minister Bob Hawke – he would go on to hold that post until 1991. That the deficit had increased in the lead up to the election had not been disclosed in pre-election documents released by the Fraser government. According to Hawke, the historically large $9.6 billion budget deficit left by the Coalition became a stick with which we were able to beat the Liberal National Opposition for many years. Keating was one of the driving forces behind the various extensive macro-
9.
Bob Hawke
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Robert James Lee Bob Hawke AC, GCL is an Australian politician who was the Prime Minister of Australia and the Leader of the Labor Party from 1983 to 1991. After graduating from the University of Oxford in 1956, Hawke was allowed to join the Australian Council of Trade Unions as a research officer. Having risen to responsible for wage arbitration, he was elected President of the ACTU in 1969. After a decade as ACTU President, Hawke announced his intention to enter politics, three years later, he led Labor to a landslide election victory at the 1983 election and was sworn in as Prime Minister. He led Labor to victory at three more elections in 1984,1987 and 1990, thus making him the most electorally successful Labor Party Leader in history, to date, he is the only Australian Prime Minister to be born in South Australia. Hawke was born in Bordertown, South Australia, the child of Arthur Hawke, a Congregationalist minister, and his wife Edith. His uncle, Albert, was the Labor Premier of Western Australia between 1953-59, and was also a friend of Prime Minister John Curtin, who was in many ways Bob Hawkes role model. Hawkes elder brother Neil, who was nine years his senior, died at the age of seventeen after contracting meningitis, ellie Hawke subsequently developed an almost messianic belief in her sons destiny, and this contributed to Hawkes supreme self-confidence throughout his career. At the age fifteen, he boasted to friends that he would one day become the Prime Minister of Australia. At the age of seventeen, the age that his brother Neil had died. This near-death experience acted as his catharsis, driving him to make the most of his talents and he joined the Labor Party in 1947 at the aged eighteen, and successfully applied for a Rhodes Scholarship at the end of 1952. Hawke was educated at Perth Modern School and the University of Western Australia, graduating in 1952 with a Bachelor of Arts and he was also president of the universitys guild during the same year. The following year, Hawke won a Rhodes Scholarship to attend University College, Oxford, in his memoirs, Hawke suggested that this single feat may have contributed to his political success more than any other, by endearing him to an electorate with a strong beer culture. In 1956, Hawke accepted a scholarship to undertake studies in the area of arbitration law in the law department at the Australian National University in Canberra. Soon after his arrival at ANU, Hawke became the representative on the University Council. A year later, Hawke was recommended to the President of the Australian Council of Trade Unions to become a research officer, the recommendation was made by Hawkes mentor at ANU, H. P. Brown, who for a number of years had assisted the ACTU in national wage cases, Hawke decided to abandon his doctoral studies and accept the offer, moving to Melbourne with his wife Hazel. He was first appointed as an ACTU advocate in 1959, the 1958 case, under previous advocate R. L. Eggleston, had yielded only a five-shilling increase
10.
Parliament of Australia
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It consists of three elements, the Queen of Australia, the Senate and the House of Representatives. The Queen is represented by the Governor-General, through both Houses, however, there is a fused executive, drawn from the Westminster System. The upper house, the Senate, consists of 76 members, twelve for each state, Senators are elected using the single transferable vote proportional representation system and as a result, the chamber features a multitude of parties vying for power. The governing party or coalition rarely has a majority in the Senate and usually needs to negotiate with other parties and this tends to lead to the chamber being dominated by two major parties, the Liberal/National Coalition and the Labor Party. The government of the day must achieve the confidence of this House in order to gain and remain in power, although elections can be called early, each 3 years the full House of Representatives and half of the Senate is dissolved and goes up for reelection. The two Houses meet in separate chambers of Parliament House on Capital Hill in Canberra, Australian Capital Territory, the Commonwealth of Australia came into being on 1 January 1901 with the federation of the six Australian colonies. The inaugural election took place on 29 and 30 March and the first Australian Parliament was opened on 9 May 1901 in Melbourne by Prince George, Duke of Cornwall and York, later King George V. The only building in Melbourne that was enough to accommodate the 14,000 guests was the western annexe of the Royal Exhibition Building. After the official opening, from 1901 to 1927, the Parliament met in Parliament House, Melbourne and it had always been intended that the national Parliament would sit in a new national capital. This was a compromise at Federation due to the rivalry between the two largest Australian cities, Sydney and Melbourne, which wished to become the new capital. The site of Canberra was selected for the location of the capital city in 1908. A competition was announced on 30 June 1914 to design Parliament House, however, due to the start of World War I the next month, the competition was cancelled. It was re-announced in August 1916, but again postponed indefinitely on 24 November 1916, in the meantime, John Smith Murdoch, the Commonwealths Chief Architect, worked on the design as part of his official duties. He had little enthusiasm for the project, as he felt it was a waste of money. Nevertheless, he designed the building by default, the construction of Old Parliament House, as it is called today, was commenced on 28 August 1923 and completed in early 1927. It was built by the Commonwealth Department of Works, using tradesmen, the final cost was about £600,000, which was more than three times the original estimate. It was designed to house the parliament for a maximum of 50 years until a permanent facility could be built, the building was opened on 9 May 1927 by the Duke and Duchess of York. The opening ceremonies were both splendid and incongruous, given the sparsely built nature of Canberra of the time and its small population, the building was extensively decorated with British Empire and Australian flags and bunting
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