Phil Cleary | |||||||||||||||||||
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Member of the Australian Parliament for Wills | |||||||||||||||||||
In office 11 April 1992 –25 November 1992 13 March 1993 – 2 March 1996 | |||||||||||||||||||
Preceded by | Bob Hawke | ||||||||||||||||||
Succeeded by | Kelvin Thomson | ||||||||||||||||||
Personal details | |||||||||||||||||||
Born | Philip Ronald Cleary 8 December 1952 Melbourne,Victoria,Australia | ||||||||||||||||||
Political party | Independent | ||||||||||||||||||
Other political affiliations | Independent Australia (1999–2003) Voice for the West (2014) | ||||||||||||||||||
Occupation | Footballer and Teacher | ||||||||||||||||||
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Philip Ronald Cleary (born 8 December 1952) is an Australian commentator on politics and sport,particularly Australian rules football,and a former independent politician elected at the 1992 Wills by-election.
Cleary first came to notice as a prominent player and coach in Victoria's second-level Australian rules football competition,the Victorian Football Association,for the Coburg Football Club. He debuted with the club in 1975,playing 205 games—second only to Dave Starbuck in Coburg club history—and kicking 317 goals. He was a member of the 1979 premiership side and losing 1980 side. He coached the club between 1984 and 1992 (captain coach between 1984 and 1987,upon which he retired as a player),before leading them to back-to-back premierships in 1988–89. In the 1986 VFA grand final against Williamstown he was sensationally ordered off,only to be found not guilty at the tribunal. He coached the VFA representative side on five occasions without losing a game. He was one of the most well-known players in the VFA in his era,and was instantly recognisable from the thick beard he wore throughout his career. [1]
He has had various coaching and mentoring roles in the Essendon District Football League over the past 10 years.
At the Wills by-election of 11 April 1992,caused by the resignation of former Prime Minister Bob Hawke,Phil Cleary was elected as an independent to the Australian House of Representatives from a field of 22 candidates,becoming the only non-Labor member to have ever held the seat. However,his election was successfully challenged in the High Court and declared void on 25 November,as Cleary was on unpaid leave from the Victorian Education Department,and the Section 44 of the Constitution of Australia forbids people employed by the Crown from standing for election. [2] A second by-election was not held,as a general election was expected within a few months. At the 1993 Australian federal election,Cleary again stood as a candidate and was elected for a second time.
Cleary lost the seat to Labor at the 1996 federal election. Wills had undergone a redistribution,by adding territory to the division,which weakened Cleary's notional position against Labor. Cleary's vote of 22.7% was a decrease of 6.7% from the 29.4% he polled in 1993,on different boundaries. [3]
While advocating an Australian Republic,he broke with the Australian Republican Movement (ARM) over disagreement about how the President of Australia should be chosen,forming a group called "Real Republic",which advocated direct election of the President as opposed to the model advocated by Malcolm Turnbull of the ARM,under which the President would be chosen by a joint sitting of the Parliament,and which was the model proposed in the 1999 referendum. [4]
Cleary nominated to contest the seat of Brunswick at the 2010 Victorian State Election as an Independent. [5]
Cleary was a part of the ABC’s telecast of VFA/VFL football as a match-day commentator from 1987 until the ABC lost the rights in 2014,juggling coaching and commentary duties for the first five seasons. He conducted interviews and acted as a boundary rider for the match of the day,writes a weekly column for the football magazine Inside Football,and regularly appears in the media on a range of social and political issues. He has campaigned to stop male violence against women since his sister was murdered by her former partner in 1987. He is a freelance journalist and public speaker and is the author of three books:Cleary Independent,Just Another Little Murder,and Getting Away with Murder.
In a much-published defamation case in 2010,it was alleged that,in his 2005 book Getting Away with Murder,Cleary had accused barrister Dyson Hore-Lacy of helping a man who killed his own wife to manufacture a provocation defence. Hore-Lacy won the case and was awarded $630,000 in damages. [6]
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Sam Kekovich is an Australian media personality, sports commentator, Australian meat lobbyist and former Australian rules football player.
The Division of Wills is an Australian electoral division of Victoria. It is currently represented by Peter Khalil of the Australian Labor Party.
The Coburg Football Club, nicknamed the Lions, is an Australian rules football club based in Coburg, a northern suburb of Melbourne, and currently playing in the Victorian Football League (VFL). It is based at Coburg City Oval since 1915, which was partly redeveloped in 2020. Coburg has historically been a proud club and has won 6 VFA/VFL premierships with the most recent premiership in 1989. From 2001 to 2013 the club was aligned with the Richmond Football Club in the Australian Football League (AFL), acting as its reserves team. Since 2014, Coburg has operated as a stand-alone club in the VFL.
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Charles Hardy was an Australian rules footballer who played for North Melbourne in the Victorian Football Association (VFA) during the 1910s and Essendon in the Victorian Football League (VFL) during the early 1920s.
Mark P. Williams is a former Australian rules footballer who played with Carlton and Footscray in the Victorian/Australian Football League (VFL/AFL).
Dyson Hore-Lacy SC is a Melbourne barrister, human rights advocate, author and former Fitzroy Football Club president.
William Bernard Hore was an Australian rules footballer who played with Geelong in the Victorian Football League (VFL).
Mark Weideman is a former Australian rules footballer who played with Collingwood in the Victorian Football League (VFL).
The 1986 Victorian Football Association season was the 105th season of the top division of the Australian rules football competition, and the 26th season of second division competition. The Division 1 premiership was won by the Williamstown Football Club, after it defeated Coburg in the Grand Final on 21 September by 13 points; it was Williamstown's eleventh Division 1 premiership, and its first since 1959. The Division 2 premiership was won by Box Hill; it was the club's second Division 2 premiership in three years, having competed in and been relegated from Division 1 in the intervening year.
The 1988 Victorian Football Association season was the 107th season of the top division of the Australian rules football competition, and the 28th and final season of second division competition. The Division 1 premiership was won by the Coburg Football Club, after it defeated Williamstown in the Grand Final on 18 September by 27 points; it was Coburg's fifth Division 1 premiership. The final Division 2 premiership was won by Oakleigh; it was the club's second Division 2 premiership, and the last premiership ever won by the club in either division.
Athol Raymond Hodgetts is a former Australian rules football player and administrator, who played for North Melbourne in the Victorian Football League (VFL), and served as the executive director of the Victorian Football Association.
Alan Mannix is a former Australian rules footballer who played with Footscray in the Victorian Football League (VFL).
The 1990 Victorian Football Association season was the 109th season of the Australian rules football competition. The premiership was won by the Williamstown Football Club, after it defeated Springvale in the grand final on 30 September by two points; it was Williamstown's twelfth top-division premiership.
James Walter Thomas Jenkins was an Australian rules footballer who played with St Kilda in the Victorian Football League (VFL). Jenkins also coached Coburg and Brunswick in the Victorian Football Association (VFA). He is a ruckman in the Coburg Football Club Team of the Century.
Robert Evans was an Australian rules footballer who played with Coburg in the Victorian Football Association. He also played a single game for Footscray in the Victorian Football League.