Anthony Michael Byrne (born 1 December 1962) is a former Australian politician. A member of the
Australian Labor Party
The Australian Labor Party (ALP), also simply known as Labor, is the major centre-left political party in Australia, one of two major parties in Australian politics, along with the centre-right Liberal Party of Australia. The party forms the f ...
in the
Australian House of Representatives
The House of Representatives is the lower house of the bicameral Parliament of Australia, the upper house being the Senate. Its composition and powers are established in Chapter I of the Constitution of Australia.
The term of members of the ...
, he was one of federal parliament's longest-serving members, having first entered Parliament in November 1999, representing the
Division of Holt
The Division of Holt is an Australian Electoral Division in Victoria. It is located in the outer south-eastern suburbs of Melbourne, including Blind Bight, Botanic Ridge, Cannons Creek, Clyde, Cranbourne, Devon Meadows, Hampton Park, Ju ...
in Victoria. He was forced to resign as the deputy chair of the
Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security The Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security (PJCIS) is a joint committee of the Parliament of Australia which oversees Australia's primary agencies of the Australian Intelligence Community: Australian Security Intelligence Organi ...
providing oversight of Australia's security services after he made admissions of corruption and branch-stacking at
Victoria's Independent Broad-based Anti-corruption Commission
The Independent Broad-based Anti-corruption Commission (IBAC) is Victoria's anti-corruption agency with jurisdiction over the public sector. It does this by:
* investigating serious corruption and police misconduct
* informing the public sector, ...
and did not re-contest the subsequent 2022 federal election.
Early life
Byrne was born in Adelaide and spent his early childhood in
Kalgoorlie
Kalgoorlie is a city in the Goldfields–Esperance region of Western Australia, located east-northeast of Perth at the end of the Great Eastern Highway. It is sometimes referred to as Kalgoorlie–Boulder, as the surrounding urban area includ ...
, where he was educated at local schools and through the
School of the Air
School of the Air is a generic term for correspondence schools catering for the primary and early secondary education of children in remote and outback Australia where some or all classes were historically conducted by radio, although this is n ...
.
[Green, Antony]
Australian Federal Election 2013 – Holt
''ABC Elections'', 2013. His high school education was completed at
Christian Brothers College, Adelaide
Christian Brothers College (CBC) is a private Catholic school in Adelaide, South Australia. It was founded by a group of Irish Christian Brothers in 1878, and it is now one of three Christian Brothers schools in the state.
CBC is predominantl ...
.
His maternal grandfather was wounded in the
Battle of Pozières
The Battle of Pozières (23 July – 3 September 1916) took place in northern France around the village of Pozières, during the Battle of the Somme. The costly fighting ended with the British in possession of the plateau north and east of the v ...
.
Before entering parliament, he worked as CEO of Anxiety Disorders Foundation of Australia.
Byrne joined the Labor Party in 1989, later serving an adviser to
Senator Jacinta Collins.
Parliamentary career
Bryne was pre-selected by the ALP as their candidate for the
1999 Holt by-election in a "full-scale factional battle", winning with the backing of the
SDA
SDA or sda may refer to:
Educational institutions
* San Dieguito Academy, Encinitas, California, US
* SDA Bocconi School of Management, in Milan, Italy
Science and technology Biology
* Specific dynamic action, the thermic effect of food
* Str ...
trade union. Byrne won the by-election, becoming "the last person elected to this federal parliament in the last century and the first to give an inaugural speech in the next."
His seat was mostly considered "a relatively safe Labor electorate." Byrne has become an increasingly strident advocate for the need to "safeguard the Australian people against foreign influence threats."
He was Parliamentary Secretary for Trade from February 2009 until 14 September 2010. A strong supporter of the trade union movement, he has a personal allegiance to the
Shop Assistants Union. Byrne stood strongly against the
WorkChoices
WorkChoices was the name given to changes made to the federal industrial relations laws in Australia by the Howard Government in 2005, being amendments to the ''Workplace Relations Act 1996'' by the ''Workplace Relations Amendment (Work Choices ...
legislation of the
Howard Government in 2005 and the Ensuring Integrity industrial reforms of the
Morrison Government
The Morrison government was the federal executive government of Australia, led by Prime Minister Scott Morrison of the Liberal Party of Australia, between 2018 and 2022. The Morrison government commenced on 24 August 2018, when it was sworn ...
in 2019 – both of which were defeated.
Following the 2010 election, Byrne was appointed chair of the
Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security The Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security (PJCIS) is a joint committee of the Parliament of Australia which oversees Australia's primary agencies of the Australian Intelligence Community: Australian Security Intelligence Organi ...
, and became deputy chair after the 2013 election.
In 2013, Byrne was considered for a portfolio in the
Second Rudd Ministry.
In March 2022, Byrne announced he would not run for
re-election that year and would retire from politics after the election.
Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security
Byrne has served on the
Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security The Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security (PJCIS) is a joint committee of the Parliament of Australia which oversees Australia's primary agencies of the Australian Intelligence Community: Australian Security Intelligence Organi ...
since 2005 and was described by a Sky News anchor as 'one of the best brains on intelligence and national security' in the Australian parliament. As chair of PJCIS in 2013, Byrne along with Deputy Chair Philip Ruddock, warned of the effect of the government's efficiency dividend on the operations of Australia's intelligence and security agencies after tabling a PJCIS report in May 2013 covering the administration and finances of Australia's six intelligence and security agencies in 2010–2011. Byrne likened the cuts to the US austerity measures which prompted warnings from US intelligence agencies, in the wake of the Boston bombings, that their ability to combat terrorism was at risk. Of the government's efficiency dividend, Byrne said "I find it frankly astonishing that these agencies would have been effectively sequestered from funding to perform their tasks" and that cuts to the agencies' funding was "disgraceful and it should be addressed."
Nine months after
PJCIS's release of its ''Report of the Inquiry into Potential Reforms of Australia's National Security Legislation'' authored under Byrne's term as Chair, the ''
Daily Telegraph
Daily or The Daily may refer to:
Journalism
* Daily newspaper, newspaper issued on five to seven day of most weeks
* ''The Daily'' (podcast), a podcast by ''The New York Times''
* ''The Daily'' (News Corporation), a defunct US-based iPad new ...
'' reported that the
Abbott Cabinet had agreed to adopt almost all of the 41 recommendations included in the report in the face of heightened security fears over Australians engaged in fighting with terrorist groups overseas. Byrne went on the record as criticising the
Abbott Government's delay in implementing the report's recommendations as "unconscionable", saying that legislation should have been brought before parliament much earlier.
Prior to changes being introduced, Byrne had been consistently critical of
PJCIS's lack of a remit over the
Australian Federal Police
The Australian Federal Police (AFP) is the national and principal federal law enforcement agency of the Australian Government with the unique role of investigating crime and protecting the national security of the Commonwealth of Australia. Th ...
, citing the lack of such a thing as a significant flaw in the oversight powers of the committee. Byrne argued that as the intelligence and law enforcement agencies had been advising the government of the need for them to receive greater powers which may have had the potential to impinge on civil liberties and democratic freedoms, that the
PJCIS should be given the appropriate oversight capacity to make inquiries on the behalf of the public for them to have confidence in the use of additional powers for these agencies.
[Sky News The Dalley Edition](_blank)
2014, YouTube, Sky News
Sky News is a British free-to-air television news channel and organisation. Sky News is distributed via an English-language radio news service, and through online channels. It is owned by Sky Group, a division of Comcast. John Ryley is the hea ...
, 20 October. Retrieved 14 June 2017.
After the PJCIS handed down its 36 recommendations on the government's controversial foreign fighter's legislation, Byrne appeared on
Sky News' The Dalley Edition to clarify the committee's position on the intrusiveness of some aspects of the legislation such as provisions for the lowering of the thresholds for agencies to access preventive detention orders, control orders, and questioning and detention powers, arguing that they needed to be counterbalanced by safeguards, most important of which would be sunset clauses.
Byrne also gave an interview to journalist
David Speers
David Gordon Speers (born 9 September 1974 in Inverell, Australia) is an Australian journalist and host of '' Insiders'' on ABC TV.
Previously he was political editor at Sky News Australia, as well as host of ''PM Agenda'', '' The Last Word' ...
in the aftermath of the
Lindt Cafe Siege
The Lindt Cafe siege was a terrorist attack that occurred on 15–16 December 2014 when a lone gunman, Man Haron Monis, held hostage ten customers and eight employees of a Lindt chocolate café in the APA Building in Martin Place, Sydney, ...
where he called for an independent judicial inquiry into the events leading up to and during the crisis which would have coercive and subpoena powers to summons any public official or minister to give evidence on the incident to regain public confidence in authorities.
In the wake of
another terror attack on police in 2015, Byrne questioned why national leaders were reaching out to the Islamic community but weren't doing the same with police; arguing for greater attention to be given to police facing the ongoing threat of street-side executions. After Muslim constituents with relatives affected by fighting in the Middle East had asked him why the coalition was taking so long to defeat
IS, with an absence of a substantial victory and the appearance that the conflict was being lost despite claims that the coalition were gaining some advantages over IS, Byrne told ABC News that Australia required "a complete, cohesive, clear strategy, a cogent strategy..with some form of timeframe to how to deal with these people."
During the
2016 federal election, Byrne began distributing flyers promoting law-and-order and an anti-terrorism platform; the first politician of the campaign to inject law-and-order into the national debate. Byrne said that he was prompted to distribute the flyers after many people in his electorate were too afraid to open their doors and talk to him while he was door-knocking due to recent gang activity and fear of violent
Ice
Ice is water frozen into a solid state, typically forming at or below temperatures of 0 degrees Celsius or Depending on the presence of impurities such as particles of soil or bubbles of air, it can appear transparent or a more or less opaq ...
users, something which Byrne call "completely unacceptable" and promised that, if re-elected, one of his first orders of business would be to work with authorities to crush the Apex gang in
his region and to ensure ice manufacturers and dealers are put out of business.
After the 2016 election,
Crikey
Crikey is an Australian electronic magazine comprising a website and email newsletter available to subscribers. Crikey was described by the former Federal Opposition Leader Mark Latham as the "most popular website in Parliament House" in ''The ...
reported that Byrne was likely to be departing
PJCIS, however later the same publication reported that Byrne would be remaining on the committee after being prevailed on to reverse his decision to leave.
Byrne has continued as the Deputy Chair for the PJCIS in the
46th Parliament of Australia
The 46th Parliament of Australia was a meeting of the legislative branch of the Australian federal government, composed of the Australian Senate and the Australian House of Representatives. The 2019 federal election gave the Coalition of t ...
. Along with other
ALP colleagues
Mike Kelly and
Kimberley Kitching
Kimberley Jane Elizabeth Kitching (16 February 1970 – 10 March 2022) was an Australian politician, lawyer, and trade unionist. A member of the Australian Labor Party, Labor Party, she was a Australian Senate, Senator for Victoria (Australia), ...
, Byrne has been a strong advocate to shift political attention to "focusing on national resilience as much as military threats." During this time, some commentators would describe Byrne as a national security hawk.
Working with the chair of the committee,
Andrew Hastie
Andrew William Hastie (born 30 September 1982) is an Australian politician and former military officer currently serving as the Shadow Minister, shadow minister for defence. He previously served as the Minister for Defence (Australia), Assistan ...
, Byrne is known to have exerted strong pressure on the
UK Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs,
Dominic Raab
Dominic Rennie Raab (; born 25 February 1974) is a British politician who has served as Deputy Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, Secretary of State for Justice, and Lord Chancellor since October 2022, having previously served from 2021 to ...
, persuading him to re-consider the UK's decision to allow
Huawei
Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd. ( ; ) is a Chinese multinational technology corporation headquartered in Shenzhen, Guangdong, China. It designs, develops, produces and sells telecommunications equipment, consumer electronics and various smar ...
to provide for their
5G network. It's known he had challenged the Foreign Secretary on the matter in February 2020, saying, "How would you feel if the Russians laid down infrastructure in your own networks? That's how we feel about Huawei." By May, Boris Johnson had announced that the UK would reduce the Chinese tech company's involvement "to zero".
Stephen Conroy
Stephen Michael Conroy (born 18 January 1963) is an Australian former politician who was an Australian Labor Party member of the Senate from 1996 to 2016, representing the state of Victoria. He served as a minister in the Rudd and Gillard gov ...
, who had overseen broadband roll out in Australia in 2011, indicated that Bryne and Hastie had played a pivotal role in the UK's decision.
Rudd-Gillard Leadership Contest
During the Rudd-Gillard years, Byrne was described as 'a key Rudd backer' and Rudd's 'loyal lieutenant'. On the day of
Rudd's February 2012 challenge for the leadership of the Labor Party against Julia Gillard, the
Herald Sun
The ''Herald Sun'' is a conservative daily tabloid newspaper based in Melbourne, Australia, published by The Herald and Weekly Times, a subsidiary of News Corp Australia, itself a subsidiary of the Murdoch owned News Corp. The ''Herald S ...
published an article by Bryne in which he detailed his reasons for supporting
Kevin Rudd
Kevin Michael Rudd (born 21 September 1957) is an Australian former politician and diplomat who served as the 26th prime minister of Australia from 2007 to 2010 and again from June 2013 to September 2013, holding office as the leader of the ...
to be re-installed as Prime Minister. In a show of solidarity within the
Federal Parliamentary Labor Party, Byrne appeared alongside fellow
Labor
Labour or labor may refer to:
* Childbirth, the delivery of a baby
* Labour (human activity), or work
** Manual labour, physical work
** Wage labour, a socioeconomic relationship between a worker and an employer
** Organized labour and the labour ...
MP
Richard Marles
Richard Donald Marles (born 13 July 1967) is an Australian politician serving as the 19th deputy prime minister of Australia and the Minister for Defence. He has been the deputy leader of the Labor Party since 2019 and previously served as D ...
in an interview on the Australian breakfast television program
Sunrise
Sunrise (or sunup) is the moment when the upper rim of the Sun appears on the horizon in the morning. The term can also refer to the entire process of the solar disk crossing the horizon and its accompanying atmospheric effects.
Terminology
Al ...
following
Rudd's unsuccessful challenge against
Gillard to call for an end to divisions within the Labor Caucus and a renewed concentration on governing the country.
Taxi and Hire Car Industry
Byrne has been named as 'one of the few MPs at either federal or state level to have voiced support for licence-holders.'
At a taxi rally in Narre Warren on 18 October 2015, attended by more than 300 people, Byrne heavily criticised the then technically illegal and unregulated ride-sharing service for undercutting the taxi industry. Byrne was reported to have said that "behind every taxi is a family", and that "In contrast to taxi and hire car operators, Uber has not been complying with a number of State and Federal government laws, regulations and taxes." Byrne rejected the idea that Uber provided a ride-sharing service and argued the company needed to be governed by the same rules as taxis. Additionally, Byrne said that "If Uber does become properly regulated and the value of taxi licences and plates are reduced then the taxi industry should be appropriately compensated." Concluding, Byrne said that "Our community needs to understand that behind every taxi is a family. We can't just stand by and wait as an industry that employs nearly 200,000 people goes to the wall."
IBAC investigation
Byrne has been a target of investigations by Victoria's
Independent Broad-based Anti-corruption Commission
The Independent Broad-based Anti-corruption Commission (IBAC) is Victoria's anti-corruption agency with jurisdiction over the public sector. It does this by:
* investigating serious corruption and police misconduct
* informing the public sector, ...
known as IBAC. He has been a person of interest into matters around allegations of branch stacking in Victoria.
IBAC is holding public hearings into allegations of serious corrupt conduct involving Victorian public officers, including Members of Parliament. The hearings are part of Operation Watts, a coordinated investigation between IBAC and the Victorian Ombudsman, which is looking into a range of matters including allegations of 'branch stacking' aired in media reports in 2020. Those media reports substantially comprised surreptitious recordings made by Byrne's staffer
Alexandra Stalder.
On the first day of hearing on 11 October 2021, Byrne admitted to branch stacking. He said he had been paying for other people's party memberships fees since 1999, forking up to $2,000 of his own money in a single year.
Personal life
Anthony Byrne has been married and divorced twice with two children from his first marriage. He supports the
Collingwood Football Club
The Collingwood Football Club, nicknamed the Magpies or colloquially the Pies, is a professional Australian rules football club based in Melbourne that competes in the Australian Football League (AFL), the sport's elite competition. The club w ...
.
A long-time resident in Endeavour Hills in the electorate of
Holt
Holt or holte may refer to:
Natural world
*Holt (den), an otter den
* Holt, an area of woodland
Places Australia
* Holt, Australian Capital Territory
* Division of Holt, an electoral district in the Australian House of Representatives in Vic ...
, Byrne lived outside his electorate in the neighbouring electorate of
La Trobe,
prior to moving to Southbank, in inner-city Melbourne.
References
External links
Anthony Byrne MP – Federal Member for HoltParliament of Australia – House of Representatives – The Hon Anthony Byrne MP Anthony Byrne Member for Holt ALP WebsiteAnthony Byrne MPon Facebook (official)
Anthony Byrne MPon Twitter (official)
*
Summary of parliamentary voting for Anthony Byrne MP on TheyVoteForYou.org.au
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Byrne, Anthony
1962 births
Living people
Australian chief executives
Australian Labor Party members of the Parliament of Australia
Members of the Australian House of Representatives
Members of the Australian House of Representatives for Holt
Australian republicans
Politicians from Melbourne
Politicians from Adelaide
Australian people of Irish descent
21st-century Australian politicians
20th-century Australian politicians
Labor Right politicians