Andrew Bragg | |
---|---|
Senator for New South Wales | |
Assumed office 1 July 2019 | |
Personal details | |
Born | Carlton, Victoria, Australia | 11 July 1984
Political party | Liberal |
Occupation | Accountant Manager |
Website | www |
Andrew James Bragg (born 11 July 1984) [1] is an Australian politician who was elected as a Senator for New South Wales at the 2019 federal election. He is a member of the Liberal Party. [2] A member of several committees related to finance and technology, [3] Bragg advocates changes to the Australian retirement system [4] [5] and supports the 2017 Uluru Statement from the Heart . [6]
Bragg was born in Melbourne [1] and grew up in Shepparton, Victoria. [7] He played for the Congupna Football Club. [8] He attended local Catholic schools before going on to study accounting at the Australian National University. [7] Bragg's father and three of his grandparents were born in the United Kingdom, and he was a British citizen by descent until renouncing it in December 2017. [1]
Bragg is a trained accountant who worked in internal audit at Ernst & Young. [9]
He then served seven years at the Financial Services Council first in superannuation and asset management policy and later as head of policy. [7]
From 2014 to 2016, Bragg served as Director of Policy & Global Markets at the Financial Services Council. He worked to establish two key pieces of industry self-regulation: a superannuation governance standard and the Trowbridge Review & the inaugural Life Insurance Consumer Code of Practice. [10] [11]
In November 2016 he became the policy director of the Menzies Research Centre, a Liberal Party think tank. [12] He became the executive director of the Business Council of Australia in August 2017. [13]
During the period he worked for the Financial Services Council, Bragg completed a Master of Financial Regulation from Macquarie University. [14]
Prior to the 2016 federal election, Bragg was an unsuccessful Liberal preselection candidate for both the Senate ticket in New South Wales and the Division of Murray in Victoria. [7] [8]
In April 2017, following the resignation of Tony Nutt, Bragg was appointed as the acting federal director of the Liberal Party. He was considered an ally of Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull. However, he was not chosen to fill the position permanently. [7] Later in the year, he was the national director of the Liberals & Nationals for Yes campaign during the Australian Marriage Law Postal Survey. [9]
Bragg was a candidate for Liberal preselection at the 2018 Wentworth by-election, caused by Turnbull's retirement from parliament. He was considered the frontrunner for a period, but withdrew from the race due to concerns that the preselection of a male candidate would be poorly received. He stated that "the Liberal Party should preselect a woman and my withdrawal can pave the way". [15]
In 2018, Bragg won preselection on the Coalition's Senate ticket. [16] He was elected to the Senate at the 2019 federal election. [2]
Bragg serves on Senate committees focused on financial technology, economics, and financial services. [3] He led the effort to create a year-long inquiry into Australia's financial technology sector [17] then chaired the resulting committee. [18] Bragg formed a 15-person advisory committee of legal and business experts to advise the Australian government on policies that could increase the country's competitiveness with countries like China in the financial technology sector. [19] Bragg led a motion requiring the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) disclose information about its content-sharing agreement with The New Daily . [20] [21] After ABC cancelled the contract with The New Daily, Bragg wrote an op-ed supporting the move in The Daily Telegraph that said The New Daily was the propaganda arm of the superannuation industry. [22] After Bragg refused to retract the statement, [22] The New Daily threatened a defamation lawsuit. [4]
Bragg is a member of the Moderate Faction of the Liberal Party. [23]
Bragg is a vocal critic of industry superannuation funds, which invest mandatory retirement contributions from workers. [4] [5] When Bragg worked for the Business Council of Australia, he lobbied to require the funds use independent directors. [4] In Bragg's first speech after being elected to the Senate, Bragg discussed why he opposed mandatory retirement payments. [24] [25] [26] Bragg also advocates for mandatory disclosures from industry superannuation funds on how retirement funds are being managed and how much money is given to trade unions. [27]
Bragg supports the Uluru Statement from the Heart, which would require the legislature to consult a network of representatives of Indigenous Australians before passing legislation affecting Indigenous Australians. [28] He lobbied other politicians to support the legislation as well. [6] He also supported having the Australian government purchase the copyrights to the Aboriginal flag, [29] so constituents could use the flag without worrying about copyright infringement. [30] Bragg supports the creation of a dedicated precinct for burying the remains of Indigenous Australians that would be called the National Resting Place or "Ngurra Precinct." [31]
Bragg urged the Australian legislature to pass regulations for cryptocurrency in an effort to encourage cryptocurrency companies to start in Australia. [32] He also advocated for big tech companies like Facebook and Google to make a proportional number of content deals with smaller publishers as they do with larger ones. [33] He participated in negotiations between Facebook and smaller news organizations to broker content agreements with a more diverse range of publishers. [34] Bragg was also an important figure in the "Consumer Data Right" privacy legislation. [35]
Bragg led the Liberal Party's campaign to support same sex marriage, [36] criticized anti-Asian comments during the COVID-19 pandemic, [37] and advocated for carbon-neutral policies. [38]
Bragg contributes to The Australian Financial Review , TheDaily Telegraph and The Australian and appears on the ABC and Sky News. [39] He is the author of Fit for Service (2017), [40] the essay "Scrap Iron for Japan" in Paul Ritchie's Forgotten People Updated (2018), [41] and Bad Egg: How to Fix Super (2020). [42] Bragg also published a book called Buraadja: The Liberal Case for National Reconciliation, [43] a three-part series focused on the history of the rights of Indigenous Australians. [44] [45]
Bragg was married to Melanie Evans, CEO of ING Australia. [46] [47] They separated in September 2022. [48] Since December 2022, he is in a relationship with former Liberal MP Fiona Martin. [49] [50]
Bragg lives in Paddington in New South Wales. [51]
In March 2020, Bragg tested positive for coronavirus as part of a cluster of cases associated with a wedding. [52]
Bragg is a Grand Commander in the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of Australia's Order of Christ-loving. He was awarded the honour by Archbishop Makarios after assisting the archbishop to obtain Australian permanent residency. He is reportedly "the first non-Greek and non-Orthodox person to receive the highest honour that the Greek Orthodox Church in Australia can bestow". [53]
Eric Abetz is an Australian politician. He was a Senator for Tasmania from 1994 to 2022, representing the Liberal Party, and since March 2024 has been a member of the Tasmanian House of Assembly for the Franklin electorate.
Russell Evan Broadbent is an Australian politician who is a member of the House of Representatives, representing the Division of Monash. He is one of the longest-serving current members of parliament, having been in parliament from 1990 to 1993, from 1996 to 1998, and since 2004. In November 2023, he stood down from the Liberal Party and its parliamentary party room and joined the crossbench in response to losing his party endorsement ahead of a federal election due by September 2025.
Concetta Anna Fierravanti-Wells is an Australian politician who was a Senator for New South Wales from 2005 to 2022, representing the Liberal Party. She served as Minister for International Development and the Pacific in the Turnbull government from 2016 to 2018. She grew up in Port Kembla, New South Wales, and, prior to entering politics, worked as a lawyer and policy adviser.
Alexander George Hawke is an Australian politician who served as Minister for Immigration, Citizenship, Migrant Services and Multicultural Affairs from 2020 to 2022 in the Morrison government. Hawke has served as Member of Parliament (MP) for Mitchell since 2007, representing the Liberal Party.
This article provides details on candidates who stood at the 2007 Australian federal election.
Andrew James Constance is an Australian politician who represented Bega for the Liberal Party in the New South Wales Legislative Assembly between 2003 and December 2021.
Simon John Birmingham is an Australian politician who has been a Senator for South Australia since 2007. A member of the Liberal Party, he served in the Morrison government as Minister for Finance from 2020 to 2022 and as Minister for Trade, Tourism and Investment from 2018 to 2020. He previously served as Minister for Education and Training in the Turnbull government from 2015 to 2018, and as a parliamentary secretary and assistant minister in the Abbott government.
Mathias Hubert Paul Cormann is a Belgian-born Australian politician and diplomat who currently serves as Secretary-General of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), having assumed the office on 1 June 2021.
John Reginald "Wacka" Williams is an Australian politician. He was a Nationals member of the Australian Senate from July 2008 to June 2019, representing the state of New South Wales.
Major General Andrew James Molan, was an Australian politician and a senior officer in the Australian Army. He was a Liberal Party senator for New South Wales from December 2017 to June 2019 and from November 2019 until his death in January 2023.
This article provides details on candidates who stood at the 2010 Australian federal election.
Timothy Robert Wilson is an Australian former politician and a member of the Liberal Party of Australia who served as the Federal Member for Goldstein in the Australian House of Representatives from 2016 to 2022. Wilson served as the Chair of the Standing Committee on Economics from 2018 to 2021 and as the Assistant Minister to the Minister for Industry, Energy and Emissions Reduction from 2021 to 2022. In the 2022 Australian federal election, Wilson lost his seat to independent candidate Zoe Daniel.
Julian Martin Leeser is an Australian politician. He is a member of the Liberal Party and has represented the Division of Berowra since the 2016 federal election. He was a shadow minister under Peter Dutton from 2022 to 2023.
Edwina Jane Hume is an Australian politician who has been a senator for Victoria since 2016, representing the Liberal Party. She served as the Minister for Superannuation, Financial Services and the Digital Economy in the Morrison government from December 2020; and in March 2021 she took on the additional role of Minister for Women's Economic Security. She held both portfolios until May 2022, following the appointment of the Albanese ministry. Prior to her election to parliament she held senior positions in the banking, finance and superannuation sectors.
This is a list of candidates for the 2019 Australian federal election, held on 18 May 2019.
The 2022 Australian federal election was held on Saturday 21 May 2022 to elect members of the 47th Parliament of Australia. The incumbent Liberal/National Coalition government, led by Prime Minister Scott Morrison, sought to win a fourth consecutive term in office but was defeated by the opposition Labor Party, led by Anthony Albanese. Up for election were all 151 seats in the lower house, the House of Representatives, as well as 40 of the 76 seats in the upper house, the Senate.
Matthew Anthony O'Sullivan is an Australian politician. He has been a Liberal Party of Australia member of the Australian Senate since 2019.
At the close of nominations a total of 1,624 candidates had stood for the 2022 Australian federal election, of whom 1,203 were House of Representatives candidates and 421 were Senate candidates.
The next Australian federal election will be held on or before 27 September 2025 to elect members of the 48th Parliament of Australia. All 151 seats in the House of Representatives and likely 40 of the 76 seats in the Senate will be contested. It is expected that at this election, the Labor government of Prime Minister Anthony Albanese will be seeking re-election to a second term in office, opposed by the Liberal/National Coalition under Leader of the Opposition Peter Dutton.
Kerrynne Liddle is an Australian politician and the first Indigenous federal member of parliament from South Australia. She is an Arrernte woman and member of the Liberal Party. She was elected to the Senate on the party's ticket in South Australia at the 2022 federal election, to a term beginning on 1 July 2022. She was a journalist and corporate manager before entering politics.