The Leader of the Opposition in the Senate is a party office held by the Opposition's most senior member of the Shadow Cabinet in the Australian Senate, elected to lead the opposition party (or parties) in the body. [1] Though the leader in the Senate does not have the power of the office of Leader of the Opposition (i.e. the leader in the House of Representatives and overall party leader), there are some parallels between the latter's status in the lower house and the former's in the Senate. [1] In addition to his or her own shadow ministerial portfolio, the leader has overarching responsibility for all policy areas and acts as the opposition's principal spokesperson in the upper house. The leader is entitled to sit at the table of the Senate, [1] and has priority in gaining recognition from the President of the Senate to speak in debate. Another similarity is that the leader typically announces changes to opposition officeholders in the Senate, including shadow ministers, party leadership and whips. [2] The leader also has some responsibility for appointing opposition senators to committees, a role filled by the Manager of Opposition Business and whips in the lower house. The current leader is Simon Birmingham. He is assisted by a Deputy Leader of the Opposition in the Senate, currently Michaelia Cash.
Senate opposition leader | Term began | Term ended | Party | Leader of the Opposition | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Josiah Symon | 6 June 1901 [n 1] | 18 August 1904 | Free Trade | George Reid | |
Gregor McGregor | 18 August 1904 [n 2] | 5 July 1905 | Labor | Chris Watson | |
Josiah Symon | 5 July 1905 [n 1] | 21 November 1907 | Free Trade | George Reid | |
Anti-Socialist | |||||
Edward Millen | 21 November 1907 [n 3] | 2 June 1909 | Anti-Socialist | ||
Joseph Cook | |||||
Commonwealth Liberal | Alfred Deakin | ||||
Gregor McGregor | 2 June 1909 [n 2] | 29 April 1910 | Labor | Andrew Fisher | |
Edward Millen | 29 April 1910 [n 3] | 24 June 1913 | Commonwealth Liberal | Alfred Deakin | |
Joseph Cook | |||||
Gregor McGregor | 24 June 1913 [n 2] | 30 July 1914 | Labor | Andrew Fisher | |
Edward Millen | 30 July 1914 [n 3] | 14 February 1917 [n 4] | Commonwealth Liberal | Joseph Cook | |
Albert Gardiner [n 5] | 17 February 1917 [n 4] | 30 June 1926 | Labor | Frank Tudor | |
Matthew Charlton | |||||
Ted Needham | 9 July 1926 [25] | 25 June 1929 | Labor | ||
James Scullin | |||||
John Daly | 25 June 1929 [26] | 22 October 1929 | Labor | ||
George Pearce | 22 October 1929 [n 6] | 6 January 1932 | Nationalist | John Latham | |
United Australia | Joseph Lyons | ||||
John Barnes | 6 January 1932 [n 7] | 30 June 1935 | Labor | James Scullin | |
Joe Collings | 1 July 1935 [31] | 7 October 1941 | Labor | ||
John Curtin | |||||
George McLeay | 7 October 1941 [n 8] | 31 May 1947 | UAP | Arthur Fadden | |
Robert Menzies [n 9] | |||||
Liberal | |||||
Walter Cooper | 1 June 1947 [34] | 19 November 1949 | Country | ||
Bill Ashley | 19 December 1949 [n 10] | 11 June 1951 | Labor | Chifley | |
Nick McKenna | 11 June 1951 [37] | 17 August 1966 | Labor | ||
H. V. Evatt | |||||
Arthur Calwell | |||||
Don Willesee | 17 August 1966 [38] | 8 February 1967 | Labor | ||
Gough Whitlam | |||||
Lionel Murphy | 8 February 1967 [39] | 5 December 1972 | Labor | ||
Reg Withers | 20 December 1972 [40] | 11 November 1975 | Liberal | Billy Snedden | |
Malcolm Fraser | |||||
Ken Wriedt | 11 November 1975 [n 11] | 28 September 1980 [n 12] | Labor | Gough Whitlam | |
Bill Hayden | |||||
John Button | 7 November 1980 [43] | 11 March 1983 | Labor | ||
Bob Hawke | |||||
Fred Chaney | 11 March 1983 [44] | 27 February 1990 [n 12] | Liberal | Andrew Peacock | |
John Howard | |||||
Andrew Peacock | |||||
Robert Hill | 3 April 1990 [45] | 11 March 1996 | Liberal | John Hewson | |
Alexander Downer | |||||
John Howard | |||||
John Faulkner | 19 March 1996 [46] | 22 October 2004 | Labor | Kim Beazley | |
Simon Crean | |||||
Mark Latham | |||||
Chris Evans | 22 October 2004 [47] | 3 December 2007 | Labor | ||
Kim Beazley | |||||
Kevin Rudd | |||||
Nick Minchin | 3 December 2007 [48] | 3 May 2010 | Liberal | Brendan Nelson | |
Malcolm Turnbull | |||||
Tony Abbott | |||||
Eric Abetz | 3 May 2010 [49] [50] | 18 September 2013 | Liberal | ||
Penny Wong | 18 September 2013 | 23 May 2022 | Labor | Chris Bowen | |
Bill Shorten | |||||
Anthony Albanese | |||||
Simon Birmingham | 23 May 2022 [51] | Incumbent | Liberal | Peter Dutton | |
Francis Gwynne Tudor was an Australian politician who served as the leader of the Australian Labor Party from 1916 until his death. He had previously been a government minister under Andrew Fisher and Billy Hughes.
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Edward John Ward was an Australian politician who represented the Australian Labor Party (ALP) in federal parliament for over 30 years. He was the member for East Sydney for all but six-and-a-half weeks from 1931 until his death in 1963. He served as a minister in the Curtin and Chifley governments from 1941 to 1949, and was also known for his role in the ALP split of 1931.
Naming is a procedure in some Westminster model parliaments that provides for the speaker to temporarily remove a member of parliament who is breaking the rules of conduct of the legislature. Historically, "naming" refers to the speaker's invocation of the process by calling out the actual name of the member, deliberately breaking the convention of calling on members by the name of their constituency.
Deborah Mary O'Neill is an Australian politician who has served as a Senator for New South Wales since 2013. Before entering politics O'Neill was a school teacher and university academic. She is a member of the Australian Labor Party and formerly represented the seat of Robertson as a member of the House of Representatives from 2010 to 2013.
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Robin Donald Chalmers was an independent Australian political journalist and commentator. The Canberra Press Gallery's longest serving member, from 1951 to 2011, his career spanned over 60 years reporting on the Parliament of Australia. Chiefly using the mediums of print and radio, his audience consisted mainly of other well-informed interested parties in the media, politics, industry and government, not a face often seen by the mainstream general public; he was, as described by the prime minister of Australia, Julia Gillard, "a journalist's journalist" . In the later half of Chalmers career, he was best known for his roles with the independent, economic and political, weekly newsletter Inside Canberra.
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