Anna Burke | |
---|---|
28th Speaker of the Australian House of Representatives | |
In office 9 October 2012 –5 August 2013 | |
Deputy | Bruce Scott |
Preceded by | Peter Slipper |
Succeeded by | Bronwyn Bishop |
Deputy Speaker of the Australian House of Representatives | |
In office 24 November 2011 –9 October 2012 | |
Preceded by | Peter Slipper |
Succeeded by | Bruce Scott |
In office 12 February 2008 –28 September 2010 | |
Preceded by | Harry Jenkins |
Succeeded by | Peter Slipper |
Member of the Australian Parliament for Chisholm | |
In office 3 October 1998 –9 May 2016 | |
Preceded by | Michael Wooldridge |
Succeeded by | Julia Banks |
Personal details | |
Born | Anna Elizabeth Burke 1 January 1966 Melbourne,Victoria,Australia |
Political party | Labor Party |
Spouse | Stephen Burgess (m. 1994) |
Children | Two |
Residence | Box Hill South [1] |
Education | Presentation College, Windsor |
Alma mater | University of Melbourne Monash University |
Occupation | Union representative, Politician |
Anna Elizabeth Burke AO (born 1 January 1966) is an Australian former politician who served as the 28th speaker of the Australian House of Representatives from 2012 to 2013. A member of the Australian Labor Party (ALP), she was the member of parliament (MP) for the division of Chisholm from 1997 to 2016.
Burke was a trade union representative before being selected by the Australian Labor Party to stand for the seat of Chisholm in 1998. She served as deputy speaker of the Australian House of Representatives twice from 2008 to 2010 and again from 2011 until the resignation of Speaker Peter Slipper due to allegations of fraud and sexual harassment in 2012. She was the second woman to become Speaker and held the office until the 2013 federal election, in which the Rudd government was defeated.
While in parliament, both as a member of the government and the opposition, Burke campaigned against offshore processing and mandatory detention of refugees, policies all of the major parties supported at the time. Burke retired from politics at the 2016 federal election. She is a current member of the Administrative Appeals Tribunal (AAT) and an Officer of the Order of Australia. Since leaving politics, Burke has also served on the boards of several foundations and companies.
Anna Elizabeth Burke was born on 1 January 1966 in Melbourne and was one of five children. [2] Her father was an electrician and her mother a was kindergarten teacher. [2]
Burke attended Presentation College, Windsor, [2] [3] and was diagnosed with dyslexia in grade 5, which led to her taking her high-school exams orally. [4] [5] In 1988, she graduated from Monash University with a Bachelor of Arts degree with Honours in English Literature, and in 1994, she graduated from the University of Melbourne with a Master of Commerce with Honours in Industrial Relations and Human Resource Management. [3] [2]
Before entering politics, Anna Burke worked as a trade union official and a human resources manager. In these capacities, she worked for VicRoads from 1988 to 1993 and for Victoria University (then the Victorian Institute of Technology) from 1993 to 1994. [2] In 1994, Burke joined the Finance Sector Union as National Industrial Officer, and was responsible for coordinating campaigns and being a spokesperson. [6]
In 1996, Burke joined the Ashwood branch of the Australian Labor Party (ALP) and in 1997, the ALP selected her as an electoral candidate for the Division of Chisholm, [2] which was then held by Liberal Minister for Health and Family Services Michael Wooldridge, who had held it for more that 11 years. Burke was not expected to win the seat but after Wooldridge switched to the Division of Casey, she won the seat at the 1998 federal election against the Liberal Paty candidate Peter Vlahos with a 4.67% swing to Labor (2PP). [7]
In 2005, Anna Burke submitted a private member's bill to the house that proposed an early form of the subsequently created Do Not Call Register, which allows people with fixed telephone lines to opt out from telemarketing. [2] After Labor's win at the 2007 federal election, Burke was elected as Deputy Speaker of the Australian House of Representatives, who presides over the House in the Speaker's absence. [3] In 2008, Prime Minister Kevin Rudd was absent from the House while he was visiting flood victims in Mackay, Queensland. [8] To protest Rudd's absence, the Opposition took a cardboard cut-out of Rudd into the chamber. [9] Burke requested the "offensive article" be removed from the House, [10] along with the Member for Cowper Luke Hartsuyker. Hartsuyker refused to leave the house, causing Burke to suspend the sitting of parliament. [8] [9] [10] While Deputy Speaker, Burke argued for the banning of websites that promote eating disorders but was not successful. [11] [12] Burke continued to advocate for awareness of eating disorders throughout her time in parliament. [13]
In 2011, Speaker Harry Jenkins announced his resignation from the Speakership, saying he wanted to be more involved in Labor Party matters as a backbencher. [14] The government nominated Peter Slipper, the member for the Division of Fisher, to become Speaker. [14] In response, the Manager of Opposition Business Christopher Pyne nominated a number of government members to become Speaker, starting with Burke. [15] All nominated government members declined their nominations. [15] Slipper accepted his nomination and took the chair as Speaker. [14] On the same day, Burke accepted the Government's nomination for the position of Deputy Speaker and was elected to that position in a ballot. [3]
In April 2012, Slipper announced he was standing aside, meaning he would remain Speaker but would not attend sessions of the House until fraud allegations made against him were resolved. [16] The Opposition called for Slipper to stay away from the chamber until sexual harassment charges were resolved as well. [17] In October 2012, Slipper resigned as Speaker of the House. [18] Later that evening, Burke was nominated and elected the new Speaker of the House of Representatives unopposed, becoming the second woman to hold the position after Joan Child. [19] [20] As Speaker, Burke instructed members not to refer to her as "Madam Speaker" but rather as "Speaker". [21] This precedent was not followed by her successor Bronwyn Bishop, who requested to be called "Madam Speaker". [21] Burke also gained a reputation as "straight-talking" [22] [23] and for using a "death stare" as Speaker. [24] [25]
In May 2012, Labor-turned-independent Member of Parliament Craig Thomson, who was embattled with the Health Services Union expenses affair, unexpectedly sided with the Opposition during a parliamentary division. To avoid accepting the "tainted vote" of Thomson, several Opposition members, including the leader Tony Abbott, ran for the doors. Burke had already asked for the doors to be locked so members were prevented from leaving the chamber. [26] [27] While Speaker, Burke unsuccessfully called for a national ban on child beauty pageants. [28] In August 2012, Burke invoked Standing Order 94A to eject Abbott from the House for one hour for refusing to withdraw a statement "without qualification". [29] The ejection of an opposition leader was rare and had not occurred since the ejection of John Howard in 1986. [29] In 2013, people in the public gallery interrupted question time several times by calling Prime Minister Julia Gillard a liar. This led to Burke stating: "This is Question Time. It is not a football match", and several individuals were removed from the gallery. [30] In August 2013, Burke's Melbourne electorate office was vandalised with graffiti that said "fre [sic] the refugees" and the windows were smashed in protest of the federal government's policy on asylum seekers. Opposition finance spokesperson Andrew Robb's nearby office was similarly vandalised. [31] [32]
In the 2013 federal election, Burke suffered a 4.18% swing (2PP) against her in Chisholm but was re-elected with 51.6% of the 2PP vote. [33] Her tenure as Speaker ended with the defeat of the Rudd government, after which the incoming Abbott government appointed Bronwyn Bishop as Speaker. [21] Burke then sought to become chief Opposition whip in the Bill Shorten–led Opposition but was not successful. [34] Burke stated she had been unsuccessful in being appointed to the frontbench because of factional manoeuvring and that Labor had "failed women" by not appointing ministers based on merit, overlooking qualified women. [35] [36] In 2014, Burke appeared on the Australian Broadcasting Corporation's (ABC) panel show Q+A , which was disrupted by protesters unfurling a banner and voicing criticism of education minister Christopher Pyne. [37] In 2015, Burke announced she would not re-contest her seat at the 2016 federal election. [38] She was replaced as the Member for Chisholm by Liberal MP Julia Banks, [39] who was the only Liberal–National Coalition candidate to win a seat held by an opposition party in 2016. [40]
Anna Burke's official portrait as Speaker of the House was painted in 2015 by Sydney artist Jude Rae, making it the first portrait in Parliament's Historical Memorials Collection that both depicts and was painted by a woman. [41] [20] The portrait was unveiled at Parliament House, Canberra, in 2017. [20] In the 2019 Australia Day Honours, Burke was made an Officer of the Order of Australia for "distinguished service to the Parliament of Australia, particularly as Speaker of the House of Representatives, and to the community". [42]
From 2016 to 2018, Burke served as the chair of Allergy and Anaphylaxis Australia. [2] As of 2024 [update] , Burke is a board member of the Institute for Breathing and Sleep since 2016, [2] a board member of RedR Australia since 2018, [2] and chair of the Monash University Accident Research Centre since 2019. [2]
In 2017, Burke was appointed a full-time member of the General, Freedom of Information, and Veterans' Appeals Divisions of the Administrative Appeals Tribunal, where her term is due to end in 2024. [43] In 2024, Burke was the lead decision-maker on a case involving a New Zealand-born man referred to as CHCY, who had his visa cancelled due to being convicted for child sexual abuse. The AAT overturned the cancellation of CHCY's visa, stating that CHCY should be allowed to stay in Australia due to his ties to the community, and that his wife and children would move to New Zealand with him were he to be deported, and that the victim in this case had moved to New Zealand already. [44]
Burke is an outspoken critic of Labor policy on asylum seekers. She is an opponent of offshore detention, a policy that was supported by all major parties during her time in parliament. [45] Burke opposed the Gillard Government's Malaysian Solution, a deal by which Malaysia would accept 800 asylum seekers from Australia. [46] Burke stated she felt "deeply uneasy with the [government's] approach" of using Manus Island as an offshore detention site, and that she was "not in favour of mandatory detention, particularly of women and children". [47] She added her role as Speaker prevented her from strongly advocating on this matter in parliament. [47] In 2013, in a discussion of refugee policy at a community forum in her electorate, Burke said she "sometimes wondered [why she ran for the Labor party]". [48] In 2014, following the death of an asylum seeker in Australian detention on Manus Island, [49] Burke wrote an article for The Guardian to call for a total end to offshore detention. [45] Together with fellow Labor parliamentarian Melissa Parke, Burke tabled a motion at ALP caucus in 2014 to cease the transfer of asylum seekers to Manus Island and Nauru, and to close the detention centres there. [50] The motion was defeated. [51] In 2016, Burke joined a working group that included Members of Parliament and religious leaders to formulate new policy on asylum seekers. [52] Responding to Burke's announcement of her retirement from parliament in 2016, Opposition Leader Bill Shorten described Burke as a "fearless and tireless advocate for the rights of asylum seekers". [53] In her parliamentary valedictory speech, Burke described offshore detention centres as a "festering wound". [54]
Because her son has a severe peanut allergy, Burke became interested in policy on food allergies. [55] In 2014, Burke proposed the creation of a National Allergen register, [55] and in 2015, she established the Parliamentary Allergy Alliance in cooperation with Australian Greens leader Richard Di Natale and ALP MP Tony Zappia. [56]
In 1994, Burke married Stephen Burgess. [2] The couple have two children; in 1999, when her first child was born, Burke became the second woman to give birth while a sitting Member of the Australian Parliament. [41] Burke had her second child in 2002. [55]
The speaker of the Australian House of Representatives is the presiding officer of the Australian House of Representatives, the lower chamber within the Parliament of Australia. The counterpart in the upper house is the president of the Senate. The office of the speakership was established in 1901 by section 35 of the Constitution of Australia. The primary responsibilities of the office is to oversee house debates, determine which members may speak, maintain order and the parliamentary and ministerial codes of conduct during sessions and uphold all rules and standing orders. The current speaker of the House of Representatives is Milton Dick, who was elected on 26 July 2022.
Anthony Norman Albanese is an Australian politician serving as the 31st and current prime minister of Australia since 2022. He has been leader of the Australian Labor Party (ALP) since 2019 and the member of parliament (MP) for the division of Grayndler since 1996. Albanese previously served as the 15th deputy prime minister under the second Rudd government in 2013. He held various ministerial positions from 2007 to 2013 in the governments of Kevin Rudd and Julia Gillard.
Bronwyn Kathleen Bishop is an Australian former politician who served as the 29th speaker of the Australian House of Representatives from 2013 to 2015. A member of the Liberal Party of Australia, she served as a senator for New South Wales from 1987 to 1994 after which she became the member of parliament (MP) for the division of Mackellar from 1994 to 2016. During her time in parliament she served as the minister for Defence Industry from 1996 to 1998 and minister for Aged Care from 1998 to 2001 under Prime Minister John Howard.
Peter Craig Dutton is an Australian politician who is the current leader of the Opposition, holding office as the leader of the Liberal Party of Australia since May 2022. He previously served as the minister for Defence from 2021 to 2022 and the minister for Home Affairs from 2017 to 2021. He has been a member of Parliament (MP) for the Queensland seat of Dickson since 2001 and has held ministerial portfolios in the federal governments of Howard, Abbott, Turnbull and Morrison.
Bruce Craig Scott is an Australian former politician. He was a member of the National Party and represented the Division of Maranoa in the House of Representatives from 1990 to 2016. He served as Minister for Veterans' Affairs in the Howard government from 1996 to 2001.
Peter Neil Slipper is an Australian former politician and bishop who served as the 27th speaker of the Australian House of Representatives from 2011 to 2012. A member of the Liberal Party of Australia for most of his career, he was the member of parliament (MP) for the division of Fisher from 1987 to 1993 and again from 1993 to 2013. He is the current bishop in Australia for the Catholic Apostolic Church of Australia (ICAB) a mission of the Brazilian Catholic Apostolic Church and an honorary consul for Brazil in Australia.
Anthony Stephen Burke is an Australian politician serving as Leader of the House, Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations and Minister for the Arts since 2022. He is a member of the Australian Labor Party (ALP), and has served as member of parliament (MP) for Watson since 2004. He held cabinet positions in the governments of Kevin Rudd and Julia Gillard from 2007 to 2013.
The Pacific Solution is the name given to the government of Australia's policy of transporting asylum seekers to detention centres on island nations in the Pacific Ocean, rather than allowing them to land on the Australian mainland. Initially implemented from 2001 to 2007, it had bipartisan support from the Coalition and Labor opposition at the time. The Pacific Solution consisted of three central strategies:
Robert James Murray Oakeshott is a retired Australian politician. He was the independent Member of the House of Representatives for the Division of Lyne in New South Wales from 2008, when he won the 2008 Lyne by-election, until his retirement in 2013. Oakeshott described his views as economically conservative and socially progressive.
Adam Paul Bandt is an Australian politician and former industrial lawyer who is the leader of the Australian Greens and federal MP for Melbourne. Previously, he served as co-deputy leader of the Greens from 2012 to 2015 and 2017 to 2020. He was elected leader following the resignation of Richard Di Natale in February 2020.
The Gillard government was the Government of Australia led by the 27th prime minister of Australia, Julia Gillard, of the Australian Labor Party. The Gillard government succeeded the first Rudd government by way of the Labor Party leadership spill, and began on 24 June 2010, with Gillard sworn in as prime minister by the governor-general of Australia, Quentin Bryce. The Gillard government ended when Kevin Rudd won back the leadership of the Australian Labor Party on 26 June 2013 and commenced the second Rudd government.
The 2013 Australian federal election to elect the members of the 44th Parliament of Australia took place on 7 September 2013. The centre-right Liberal/National Coalition opposition led by Opposition leader Tony Abbott of the Liberal Party of Australia and Coalition partner the National Party of Australia, led by Warren Truss, defeated the incumbent centre-left Labor Party government of Prime Minister Kevin Rudd in a landslide. It was also the third time in history that a party won 90 or more seats at an Australian election. Labor had been in government for six years since being elected in the 2007 election. This election marked the end of the Rudd-Gillard-Rudd Labor government and the start of the 9 year long Abbott-Turnbull-Morrison Liberal-National Coalition government. Abbott was sworn in by the Governor-General, Quentin Bryce, as Australia's new Prime Minister on 18 September 2013, along with the Abbott Ministry. The 44th Parliament of Australia opened on 12 November 2013, with the members of the House of Representatives and territory senators sworn in. The state senators were sworn in by the next Governor-General Peter Cosgrove on 7 July 2014, with their six-year terms commencing on 1 July.
The following lists events that happened during 2012 in Australia.
Gerardine Mary "Ged" Kearney is an Australian politician and trade unionist who is the Labor member for the federal division of Cooper and the current assistant minister for health and aged care. She has been a member of the House of Representatives since March 2018, first representing the division of Batman. Prior to politics, Kearney served as president of the Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU) from 2010 to 2018.
The Misogyny Speech was a parliamentary speech delivered by Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard on 9 October 2012 in reaction to the opposition leader Tony Abbott accusing her of sexism.
Jenny Leong, an Australian politician, is a member of the New South Wales Legislative Assembly representing Newtown for the Greens since 2015. Leong is the first person to represent Newtown in its current form, as it was created for the 2015 election.
Julia Helen Banks is an Australian lawyer and politician. Elected as the member for Chisholm in the Australian House of Representatives at the 2016 federal election, Banks was the only candidate for the governing Liberal-National Coalition to win a seat held by an opposition party. The previous member, Labor's Anna Burke, had held the seat since 1998 and did not stand for re-election in 2016. Following the Liberal Party leadership spill in August 2018 that saw Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull replaced by Scott Morrison, Banks stated she would not contest the 2019 federal election; and in November 2018 she announced she had quit the party to become an independent MP and sit on the crossbench. She unsuccessfully contested the seat of Flinders at the 2019 election, pitting her against government frontbencher Greg Hunt.
Monique Marie Ryan is an Australian politician and former paediatric neurologist. She is currently the independent Member of Parliament for the Division of Kooyong, Victoria, having won the seat at the 2022 federal election.
Sophie Anna Rebecca Scamps is an Australian independent politician, general practitioner, and former athlete. In the 2022 Australian federal election, she was elected as the Member for Mackellar in the Australian House of Representatives. Scamps is classified as a Teal independent, as she was one of a group of independents at the 2022 federal election supported by Climate 200.
Carina Mary Lindsay Garland is an Australian politician. She has served as a Labor MP for Chisholm since the 2022 Australian federal election.
For distinguished service to the Parliament of Australia, particularly as Speaker of the House of Representatives, and to the community