Terry Burke

Last updated

Terry Burke
Member of the Western Australian Legislative Assembly
In office
23 March 1968 –18 March 1987
Relatives Brian Burke (brother)
ProfessionPublic servant

Terence Joseph Burke (born 1 February 1942) is a former member for the seat of Perth in the Western Australian Legislative Assembly. He held the seat between 1968 and 1987. In 1974, with the Labor Party in Opposition, he was a member of the Tonkin shadow ministry. He is the elder brother of former premier Brian Burke and both are sons of former federal shadow cabinet member Tom Burke.

Contents

Early life

Burke was born on 1 February 1942 in Perth, Western Australia. [1] His parents were Tom Burke, an Australian Labor Party politician in the House of Representatives from 1943 to 1955, and Madeline Muirson Orr. [2] [3] Tom Burke had Irish ancestry, and was deeply Catholic. [4] Madeline Orr was of Irish and Scottish ancestry. [5] Terry Burke was the first child out of five: the second child was Anne Burke, the third child was Brian Burke, the fourth child was Frankie Burke, who had down syndrome, and the fifth child was Genevieve Burke. [6] [2] He grew up in the middle-class Perth suburb of Wembley, living in a California bungalow set on a quarter acre block. [2]

Political career

Burke joined the Labor Party in 1958. At the 1968 Western Australian state election, he was elected to the electoral district of Perth in the Legislative Assembly. [1] His brother Brian was elected to the electoral district of Balcatta in a 1973 by-election.

Following Labor's 1974 election loss, Burke became a member of the Tonkin shadow ministry. He was the shadow chief secretary, shadow minister for conservation and the environment, and shadow minister for fisheries and fauna until April 1977. [1] His brother became the premier of Western Australia after the 1983 state election.

On 18 March 1987, Burke resigned from parliament. [1]

He was later found to be involved in events related to the WA Inc scandal. A royal commission found that Burke had received a $600,000 commission for fundraising campaign donations paid to his brother and the Labor Party during the 1987 federal election. [7]

[The commission was paid for work done for the Party after Burke retired from State Parliament in 1987, and under a proposal put to him by Michael Behan, the then State Secretary of the Labor Party. The proposal, which was endorsed by the Administrative Committee of the Party and formally accepted by Burke on 19 May 1987, specified that Burke was to be paid a 25 percent commission on funds raised for the Party. Over the next twelve months Burke raised $2,506,084 for the Party and was paid a total Commission of $626,521, which worked out, after tax to be $391,576. Footnote 8 re source <Information supplied by anonymous sources of Joseph Poprzeczny, former journalist with The Australian, a News Limited newspaper published in Sydney, Western Australia>/ref>

Personal life

Burke is Catholic. He married Luciana Mary Sepich on 12 March 1966 at Sacred Heart Church in Highgate. He has two sons and two daughters. [1]

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References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 "Mr Terence Joseph Burke". Parliament of Western Australia. Retrieved 27 June 2022.
  2. 1 2 3 Beresford 2008, p. 5.
  3. ↑ Bolton, G. C. (1993). "Burke, Thomas Patrick (Tom) (1910–1973)". Australian Dictionary of Biography.
  4. ↑ Beresford 2008, p. 2–3.
  5. ↑ Hamilton 1988, p. 22.
  6. ↑ Burke 2017, p. 29.
  7. ↑ "A role in the fall of a Labor mate conveniently omitted from the eulogies". Sydney Morning Herald. 20 July 2005. Retrieved 27 June 2022.

Bibliography

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