Jamie Edward Briggs (born 9 June 1977) is a former Australian politician, who represented the
House of Representatives
House of Representatives is the name of legislative bodies in many countries and sub-national entitles. In many countries, the House of Representatives is the lower house of a bicameral legislature, with the corresponding upper house often c ...
seat of
Mayo Mayo often refers to:
* Mayonnaise, often shortened to "mayo"
* Mayo Clinic, a medical center in Rochester, Minnesota, United States
Mayo may also refer to:
Places
Antarctica
* Mayo Peak, Marie Byrd Land
Australia
* Division of Mayo, an Aust ...
for the
Liberal Party of Australia
The Liberal Party of Australia is a centre-right political party in Australia, one of the two major parties in Australian politics, along with the centre-left Australian Labor Party. It was founded in 1944 as the successor to the United Au ...
backbench
In Westminster and other parliamentary systems, a backbencher is a member of parliament (MP) or a legislator who occupies no governmental office and is not a frontbench spokesperson in the Opposition, being instead simply a member of the " ...
in late 2015 following inappropriate conduct during an official overseas trip. Briggs lost his seat in the 2016 federal election to
Nick Xenophon Team
Centre Alliance, formerly known as the Nick Xenophon Team (NXT), is a centrist political party in Australia based in the state of South Australia. It currently has one representative in the Parliament, Rebekha Sharkie in the House of Represent ...
candidate
Rebekha Sharkie
Rebekha Carina Sharkie ( Che;
born 24 August 1972) is an Australian politician and member of the Centre Alliance party. She is a member of the Australian House of Representatives, representing the Division of Mayo in South Australia. At the 20 ...
.
Background
Briggs grew up in the River Murray town of
Mildura
Mildura is a regional city in north-west Victoria, Australia. Located on the Victorian side of the Murray River, Mildura had a population of 34,565 in 2021. When nearby Wentworth, Irymple, Nichols Point and Merbein are included, the area had ...
, where his father was a local bank teller and his mother volunteered in the canteen at the Sacred Heart Catholic primary school. He attended St Joseph's College where he excelled in cricket before moving to
Adelaide
Adelaide ( ) is the capital city of South Australia, the state's largest city and the fifth-most populous city in Australia. "Adelaide" may refer to either Greater Adelaide (including the Adelaide Hills) or the Adelaide city centre. The dem ...
to pursue his dreams of playing for Australia. Briggs became a member of the Liberal Party in 1999 and was on the Liberal Party State Council from 2000 to 2002. He was an employment relations adviser for
Business SA
, merged =
, successor =
, formation = {{start date and age, 1839, df=y
, founder =
, founding_location =
, extinction =
, merger = {{plain list,
* South Australian E ...
from 2000 to 2002. In 2002, he started working for the then South Australian Treasurer,
Rob Lucas
Robert Ivan Lucas (born 7 June 1953) is a former Australian politician and a former member of the South Australian Legislative Council between the 1982 election and the 2022 election, representing the South Australian Division of the Liberal ...
, before moving to Canberra in 2003 to work for Kevin Andrews in the Howard Government. From 2004 to 2007 he was a senior advisor for
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 ...
to the Prime Minister,
John Howard
John Winston Howard (born 26 July 1939) is an Australian former politician who served as the 25th prime minister of Australia from 1996 to 2007, holding office as leader of the Liberal Party. His eleven-year tenure as prime minister is the s ...
.
Political career
Briggs was pre-selected as the
Liberal Party of Australia
The Liberal Party of Australia is a centre-right political party in Australia, one of the two major parties in Australian politics, along with the centre-left Australian Labor Party. It was founded in 1944 as the successor to the United Au ...
candidate for the 2008 Mayo by-election to replace former Liberal leader and minister
Alexander Downer
Alexander John Gosse Downer (born 9 September 1951) is an Australian former politician and diplomat who was leader of the Liberal Party from 1994 to 1995, Minister for Foreign Affairs from 1996 to 2007, and High Commissioner to the United King ...
. In the absence of a
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 ...
candidate, Briggs won the seat with a reduced 53.03 percent two-candidate vote against the Greens, in comparison to the 2007 election with a 57.1 percent two-party vote against Labor. The Liberal two-party vote was increased to 57.4 percent at the 2010 election and to 62.5 percent at the 2013 election.
After the 2010 election Briggs was given the position of chair of the Coalition's Scrutiny of Government Waste Committee as part of the
opposition
Opposition may refer to:
Arts and media
* ''Opposition'' (Altars EP), 2011 EP by Christian metalcore band Altars
* The Opposition (band), a London post-punk band
* ''The Opposition with Jordan Klepper'', a late-night television series on Comed ...
led by
Tony Abbott
Anthony John Abbott (; born 4 November 1957) is a former Australian politician who served as the 28th prime minister of Australia from 2013 to 2015. He held office as the leader of the Liberal Party of Australia.
Abbott was born in Londo ...
. In September 2012, Briggs was appointed to the Opposition frontbench as the Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Supporting Families. As part of his role as the Chairman of the Coalition's Scrutiny of Government Committee, Briggs wrote ''The Little Book of Big Labor Waste'' with the
Leader of the Opposition
The Leader of the Opposition is a title traditionally held by the leader of the largest political party not in government, typical in countries utilizing the parliamentary system form of government. The leader of the opposition is typically se ...
, Tony Abbott, and the Shadow Treasurer,
Joe Hockey
Joseph Benedict Hockey (born 2 August 1965) is a former Australian politician and diplomat.
He was the Member of Parliament for North Sydney from 1996 until 2015. He was the Treasurer of Australia in the Abbott Government from 18 September 2 ...
. It was published on 13 May 2013. Briggs has also pursued the Gillard Government over a Freedom of Information decision to refuse access to Greens policy costings.
crash tackle
The crash ball is an attacking tactic in rugby league and rugby union where a player receives a pass at pace and runs to the opposition's defensive line. The crash ball runner attempts to commit two or more opposing players to the tackle, then att ...
on Abbott at a boisterous late-night party in Abbott's office on the night he was deposed as Prime Minister in September 2015. For the next two months, Briggs insisted that he had damaged his
anterior cruciate ligament
The anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) is one of a pair of cruciate ligaments (the other being the posterior cruciate ligament) in the human knee. The two ligaments are also called "cruciform" ligaments, as they are arranged in a crossed formation ...
while jogging the following morning, and had not been not involved in shattering an expensive Italian marble table in Abbott's office. It was expected that the damage to the table would be repaired at the taxpayer's expense, but Abbott later said he would pay for it.
On 20 September 2015, in the incoming Turnbull Government, Briggs' portfolio in the outer ministry was changed to Minister for Citiesand the Built Environment. Turnbull had initially dumped Briggs from the ministry, but when
Bruce Billson
Bruce Frederick Billson (born 26 January 1966) is a former politician who was a Liberal member of the Australian House of Representatives representing the Division of Dunkley in Victoria from 1996 to 2016.Hong Kong
Hong Kong ( (US) or (UK); , ), officially the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China ( abbr. Hong Kong SAR or HKSAR), is a city and special administrative region of China on the eastern Pearl River Delt ...
bar, involving Briggs and a female
DFAT
The Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) is the department of the Australian federal government responsible for foreign policy and relations, international aid (using the branding Australian Aid), consular services and trade and inv ...
staffer, during an official visit in November,
Prime Minister
A prime minister, premier or chief of cabinet is the head of the cabinet and the leader of the ministers in the executive branch of government, often in a parliamentary or semi-presidential system. Under those systems, a prime minister is not ...
Malcolm Turnbull
Malcolm Bligh Turnbull (born 24 October 1954) is an Australian former politician and businessman who served as the 29th prime minister of Australia from 2015 to 2018. He held office as leader of the Liberal Party of Australia.
Turnbull grad ...
asked Briggs to "consider his position". On 29 December 2015, Briggs quit the
First Turnbull Ministry
The first Turnbull ministry (Liberal–National Coalition) was the 69th ministry of the Government of Australia, led by Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull. It succeeded the Abbott ministry after a leadership spill that took place on 14 September ...
and moved to the
backbench
In Westminster and other parliamentary systems, a backbencher is a member of parliament (MP) or a legislator who occupies no governmental office and is not a frontbench spokesperson in the Opposition, being instead simply a member of the " ...
. Briggs acknowledged that his behaviour had not met the "particularly high standards required of ministers", although he said that nothing illegal had occurred. According to ''
The Australian Financial Review
''The Australian Financial Review'' (abbreviated to the ''AFR'') is an Australian business-focused, compact daily newspaper covering the current business and economic affairs of Australia and the world. The newspaper is based in Sydney, New Sou ...
'', "government sources" claimed Briggs was accused of
sexual harassment
Sexual harassment is a type of harassment involving the use of explicit or implicit sexual overtones, including the unwelcome and inappropriate promises of rewards in exchange for sexual favors. Sexual harassment includes a range of actions fro ...
. According to ''
The Adelaide Advertiser
''The Advertiser'' is a daily tabloid format newspaper based in the city of Adelaide, South Australia. First published as a broadsheet named ''The South Australian Advertiser'' on 12 July 1858,
Briggs' wife Estée, a former Liberal staffer, responded hours later on
Facebook
Facebook is an online social media and social networking service owned by American company Meta Platforms. Founded in 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg with fellow Harvard College students and roommates Eduardo Saverin, Andrew McCollum, Dustin M ...
by posting a family picture of the two along with their three young children, and reportedly said the scandal was a "complete exaggeration and over-reaction". With Turnbull becoming aware of the incident on 5 December, questions were raised over the "unusually long time" between the complaint and the resignation, as well as the timing of the announcement during the holiday period. Minutes after Briggs' press conference,
Mal Brough
Malcolm Thomas Brough ( ; born 29 December 1961) is a former Australian politician. He represented the Liberal Party in the House of Representatives (1996–2007, 2013–2016) and held ministerial office in the Howard and Turnbull Governments. ...
also stood aside from the First Turnbull Ministry due to an investigation by the Australian Federal Police over the alleged copying of the diary of former speaker
Peter Slipper
Peter Neil Slipper (born 14 February 1950) is a former Australian politician who served in the House of Representatives from 1984 to 1987 and from 1993 to 2013, representing the Division of Fisher in Queensland. He was Speaker of the House of ...
. The two resignations led to a ministerial re-shuffle.
Briggs announced that he intended to re-contest the Liberal seat of Mayo at the 2016 federal election and to return to the ministry one day. Following the announcement of his resignation, despite claiming that he would not identify her, Briggs distributed a photograph of the complainant to some colleagues. The photograph later appeared in a national newspaper, along with sufficient detail to identify the woman.
In April 2016, Briggs supported calls from two state Liberal parliamentarians for seal culling in South Australia, after witnessing a "massacre" of dozens of
fairy penguins
The little penguin (''Eudyptula minor'') is a species of penguin from New Zealand. They are commonly known as little blue penguins or blue penguins owing to their slate-blue plumage and are also known by their Māori name .
The Australian lit ...
on
Kangaroo Island
Kangaroo Island, also known as Karta Pintingga (literally 'Island of the Dead' in the language of the Kaurna people), is Australia's third-largest island, after Tasmania and Melville Island. It lies in the state of South Australia, southwest ...
.
2016 election
Briggs was beaten at the 2016 federal election by his former staffer
Rebekha Sharkie
Rebekha Carina Sharkie ( Che;
born 24 August 1972) is an Australian politician and member of the Centre Alliance party. She is a member of the Australian House of Representatives, representing the Division of Mayo in South Australia. At the 20 ...
, who successfully contested Mayo for the
Nick Xenophon Team
Centre Alliance, formerly known as the Nick Xenophon Team (NXT), is a centrist political party in Australia based in the state of South Australia. It currently has one representative in the Parliament, Rebekha Sharkie in the House of Represent ...
. He lost over 16 percent of his primary vote from 2013, and finished just three percent ahead of Sharkie on the first count. Ultimately, Sharkie defeated Briggs after the distribution of preferences.
Personal life
Briggs is married to former Liberal staffer Estée Fiebiger and has three children. He lives in
Aldgate
Aldgate () was a gate in the former defensive wall around the City of London. It gives its name to Aldgate High Street, the first stretch of the A11 road, which included the site of the former gate.
The area of Aldgate, the most common use of ...