Daniel Roy Cregan is an Australian lawyer and Independent politician who has served as

Speaker of the South Australian House of Assembly The Speaker of the South Australian House of Assembly is the presiding officer of the South Australian House of Assembly, the lower house of the Parliament of South Australia. The other presiding officer is the President of the South Australian ...

since 12 October 2021. He has represented Kavel in the House of Assembly since the

2018 South Australian state election The 2018 South Australian state election to elect members to the 54th Parliament of South Australia was held on 17 March 2018. All 47 seats in the House of Assembly or lower house, whose members were elected at the 2014 election, and 11 of 22 se ...

Early life

Cregan grew up in South Australia and Western Australia, attending the University of Adelaide, where he was active in student politics, including as a director of the Adelaide University Union and as president of the Adelaide University Law Students' Society. He also rowed for the

Adelaide University Boat Club The Adelaide University Boat Club is a rowing club affiliated with the University of Adelaide. The club was founded in 1881, and in 1896 helped to form the Adelaide University Sports Association. The main clubrooms, donated by Robert Barr Smit ...

First VIII. Cregan received a Cambridge Commonwealth Trust bursary to study law at

Peterhouse, Cambridge Peterhouse is the oldest constituent college of the University of Cambridge in England, founded in 1284 by Hugh de Balsham, Bishop of Ely. Today, Peterhouse has 254 undergraduates, 116 full-time graduate students and 54 fellows. It is quite ...

Career

After graduating, Cregan was appointed judge's associate to John Doyle AC QC (

Chief Justice of South Australia Of the judges of the Supreme Court of South Australia, , 14 had previously served in the Parliament of South Australia Edward Gwynne, Sir Richard Hanson, Randolph Stow, Sir Samuel Way, Sir James Boucaut, Richard Andrews, Sir William Bundey, S ...

) and left that role to serve as an Australian Youth Ambassador for Development in

Jakarta Jakarta (; , bew, Jakarte), officially the Special Capital Region of Jakarta ( id, Daerah Khusus Ibukota Jakarta) is the capital and largest city of Indonesia. Lying on the northwest coast of Java, the world's most populous island, Jakarta ...

. Later, Cregan joined the graduate program at Allens Linklaters where he became a

senior associate Senior (shortened as Sr.) means "the elder" in Latin and is often used as a suffix for the elder of two or more people in the same family with the same given name, usually a parent or grandparent. It may also refer to: * Senior (name), a surname ...

in the firm's disputes and investigations team. Cregan also held a number of board appointments with the

Australian Property Institute The Australian Property Institute (API) is a professional industry body representing residential, commercial and plant and machinery valuers, analysts, fund managers and property lawyers. The API was originally formed in 1926 as the Commonwealth ...

and as a director of a family company. Before his election Cregan worked as a lawyer in the Adelaide Hills.

Parliamentary service

Following the election of

Steven Marshall Steven Spence Marshall (born 21 January 1968) is an Australian politician who served as the 46th premier of South Australia between 2018 and 2022. He has been a member of the South Australian Division of the Liberal Party of Australia in the ...

's government in March 2018, Cregan was made Chair of the South Australian Public Works Committee with oversight of South Australian infrastructure projects. In October 2021, Cregan announced that he would recontest his seat as an independent at the forthcoming

2022 South Australian state election The 2022 South Australian state election was held on 19 March 2022 to elect members to the 55th Parliament of South Australia. All 47 seats in the House of Assembly (the lower house, whose members were elected at the 2018 election), and half th ...

saying the State Government had failed to plan for the needs of his rapidly growing regional community.

Election as Speaker

On 12 October 2022, South Australia's Constitution Act was amended to adopt the United Kingdom practice of requiring an independent Speaker. Following passage of the constitutional changes, Cregan was elected

23 votes to 21. After the

, Cregan was nominated unopposed by the Government and Opposition to serve as independent Speaker in the 55th Parliament of South Australia.

References

Members of the South Australian House of Assembly Date of birth missing (living people) Living people Liberal Party of Australia members of the Parliament of South Australia Independent members of the Parliament of South Australia University of Adelaide alumni Alumni of the University of Cambridge 21st-century Australian politicians 1984 births {{Australia-Liberal-politician-stub