People

Anthony John 'Tony' Abbott

Tony Abbott (b.1957) became Australia’s 28th Prime Minister on 18 September after the Liberal/National Party Coalition won the 2013 federal electio...

Jules François Archibald

Jules François Archibald (1856-1919) co-founded (1880) and edited (1886-1903) the Sydney Bulletin. Welcoming all contributors, his journal reflecte...

Faith Ida Lessing Bandler

Faith Ida Lessing Bandler (1918-2015) is a social-justice activist and a writer. A leader (1958-73) of the Federal Council for Aboriginal Advancem...

Edmund Barton

Sport first brought Edmund Barton (1849-1920) to prominence, when as a young umpire he ended a riot on the cricket field during a match between New...

Anna Maria Bligh

Anna Maria Bligh (b.1960), a public servant, community-worker and Australian Labor Party organiser, entered Queensland parliament in 1995 to help f...

William Bligh

William Bligh (1754-1817) was a naval officer whose rigid and abusive temperament marred his considerable attainments. His command of the Bounty e...

Neville Thomas Bonner

Neville Thomas Bonner (1922-99), a bush-worker and carpenter with little formal education, believed in using established political processes to imp...

Sir Richard Bourke

Sir Richard Bourke (1777-1855), an army officer and Irish landowner, governed New South Wales in 1831-37, a period of rapid economic growth and pop...

Stanley Melbourne Bruce

Stanley Melbourne Bruce (later Viscount Bruce of Melbourne) (1883-1967) was a Gallipoli veteran and experienced businessman before he entered Parli...

Gordon Munro Bryant

Gordon Munro Bryant (1914-91) was a school teacher and Labor member of the House of Representatives (1955-80). He presided (1957-64) over the Abor...

Herbert (Joe) Burton

Herbert (Joe) Burton (1900-83) was an economic historian and educationist who headed Canberra University College (1948-60) and the School of Genera...

Arthur Augustus Calwell

Arthur Augustus Calwell (1896-1973) was a Victorian member of federal parliament (1940-72) and Leader of the Opposition (1960-67). As Minister for...

Raffaello Carboni

Raffaello Carboni (1817-75), an Italian patriot and exile, joined the gold rush to Australia in 1852. Multi-lingual and with revolutionary experi...

Dame Annie Florence Gillies Cardell-Oliver

Dame Annie Florence Gillies Cardell-Oliver (1876-1965) was a Nationalist (later Liberal) Party member (1936-56) of the Western Australian Legislati...

Joseph Benedict Chifley

Ben Chifley’s (1885-1951) childhood in a wattle and daub hut outside Bathurst has entered Labor legend. A railway worker and locomotive driver befo...

Joan Child

Gloria Joan Liles Child (1921-2013) was a Labor member (1974-75 and 1980-90) for the seat of Henty. A commitment to social justice underpinned her...

Andrew Inglis Clark

Andrew Inglis Clark (1848-1907) was an influential Federationist and one of the principal drafters of the Australian Constitution. A democrat and ...

David Collins

David Collins (1756-1810), a Royal Marines officer, served (1788-96) in New South Wales. As deputy judge-advocate, he was responsible for the colo...

Joseph Cook

Joseph Cook (1860-1947) began his political career as one of Labor’s foundation MPs in New South Wales in 1891. In 1893 he became Labor leader, but...

James Cook

James Cook (1728-79) was a renowned navigator and respected leader of men in the Royal Navy. He commanded three voyages of exploration in the Paci...

William Cooper

William Cooper (c.1861-1941), a Victorian shearer and handyman, was a spokesman for Aboriginal people in the 1920s and 1930s. He sought relief for...

Edith Dircksey Cowan

Edith Dircksey Cowan (1861-1932) was a leader of the women’s movement in Western Australia, committed to ameliorative reforms that would enhance wo...

John Curtin

John Curtin (1885-1945) came to power as a result of parliamentary manoeuvres in 1941, but led Labor to a landslide victory in 1943. Many revere hi...

Zelda D'Aprano

Zelda D'Aprano (b.1928) grew up in poverty, left school early and held working-class jobs. She was a communist and unionist before embracing women...

Andrew (Anderson) Dawson

Andrew (Anderson) Dawson (1863-1910) was a miner and later a newspaper editor and proprietor. A unionist, republican and Federationist, he was a ...

Alfred Deakin

Alfred Deakin (1856-1919) served as Australian prime minister three times (1903-04, 1905-08 and 1909-10). He was the central figure in Australian p...

Sir James Robert Dickson

Sir James Robert Dickson (1832-1901) was an auctioneer, estate agent and politician in Queensland. As Premier (1898-99) he persuaded Brisbaneís co...

Henrietta Augusta Dugdale

Henrietta Augusta Dugdale (1827-1918) was a radical, free-thinking feminist. In 1884 she took office as inaugural President of the Victorian Women...

Ada Emily Evans

Ada Emily Evans (1872-1947), a former teacher, pioneered the opening of the legal profession to women; she wished to counter the prejudices of the ...

Elizabeth Andreas Evatt

Elizabeth Andreas Evatt (b.1933) is an eminent jurist who has sat on numerous national and international tribunals and commissions. In 1976-88 sh...

Herbert Vere Evatt

Herbert Vere Evatt (1894-1965) was prominent in 1945-49 in the formation and operation of the United Nations after World War II. He was a High Cou...

Arthur Fadden

Arthur Fadden (1895- 1973) first took centre stage in public life in 1918 when he and an alderman took charge of the city of Mackay after a destruc...

William Ferguson

William Ferguson (1882-1950) was a bush-worker, unionist and activist for Aboriginal rights in New South Wales. An organiser of the Aborigines Pro...

Andrew Fisher

Andrew Fisher (1862-1928) served as prime minister in 1908-09, 1919-13, and 1914-15. He was one of the founders of the Labor Party in Australia. He...

Margaret Jane Fisher

Margaret Jane Fisher (1874-1958) broke new ground for the wife of a prime minister by taking part in a political demonstration. While in London in...

Brian Charles Fitzpatrick

Brian Charles Fitzpatrick (1905-65), a journalist, non-dogmatic socialist and freelance radical publicist, was a significant defender of civil libe...

Sir Charles Augustus FitzRoy

Sir Charles Augustus FitzRoy (1796-1858), a British Army officer and politician with aristocratic connections, was Governor of New South Wales (184...

Matthew Flinders

Matthew Flinders (1774-1814) was a navigator and hydrographer of exceptional ability, high ideals and undaunted spirit. In 1795-1800 he explored w...

Francis Michael Forde

Frank Forde (1890-1983) was Prime Minister for only a week, after the death of John Curtin. Ironically, Forde had almost won the Labor leadership i...

Sir John (Baron) Forrest

Sir John (Baron) Forrest (1847-1918), a surveyor and explorer, was the first premier (1890-1901) of Western Australia. He developed public utiliti...

Elizabeth Lilian Maud Fowler

Elizabeth Lilian Maud Fowler (1886-1954) was an outstanding and forceful organiser of the Australian Labor Party. Elected intermittently to Newtow...

John Malcolm Fraser

Malcolm Fraser (1930-2015) came to power during a time of crisis, following the dismissal of Gough Whitlam after the Senate refused to pass the gov...

John Frost

John Frost (1784-1877) was a Monmouthshire draper and alderman who from 1816 advocated a program of parliamentary reform, anticipating the Six Poin...

Sir Philip Woolcott Game

Sir Philip Woolcott Game (1876-1961), a retired Royal Air Force officer, was Governor of New South Wales in 1930-35, a time of severe economic depr...

Sir Robert Randolph Garran

Sir Robert Randolph Garran (1867-1957) was a lawyer and in the 1890s a dedicated worker for the Federation movement. In 1901 he was appointed the ...

Joseph Gerrald

Joseph Gerrald (1760-96), a lawyer, was prominent among radicals in London who advocated drastic parliamentary reform. He was an impassioned and e...

Julia Eileen Gillard

Julia Eileen Gillard (b.1961), a Victorian lawyer and Labor member of the House of Representatives since 1998, became Australiaís first female depu...

Vida Goldstein

Vida Goldstein (1869-1949) led the radical women’s movement in Victoria in 1899-1919. Five times a candidate for federal parliament in 1903-17, sh...

John Gorton

John Gorton’s (1911-2002) prime ministership ended with his resignation, after a party motion of confidence resulted in a tied vote. Gorton won the...

Grata Flos Matilda Greig

Grata Flos Matilda Greig (1880-1958) gained a Bachelor of Laws in Melbourne in 1903. Lobbying resulted in legislation allowing women to be admitte...

Sir Samuel Walker Griffith

Sir Samuel Walker Griffith (1845-1920) was a Queensland politician (1872-93) who was Premier in 1883-88 and 1890-93. He was Chief Justice of the S...

Julia Margaret (Bella) Guerin

Julia Margaret (Bella) Guerin (1858-1923) was, in 1883, the first woman to graduate from an Australian university (Melbourne). She became a teache...

Dame Margaret Georgina Constance Guilfoyle

Dame Margaret Georgina Constance Guilfoyle (b.1926), an accountant, was a Victorian Liberal senator (1971-87). Minister for Education (1975) and M...

Janine Haines

Janine Haines (1945-2004), a teacher from South Australia, was the first Australian Democrats senator (1977-78 and 1981-90). In 1986 she became th...

Pauline Lee Hanson

Pauline Lee Hanson (b.1954), a small-business owner from Queensland, was a member (1996-98) of the House of Representatives, initially as an indepe...

Bob Hawke

Bob Hawke (b.1929) was Prime Minister within three years of entering Parliament, and led Australia for longer than any other Labor Prime Minister. ...

David Matthew Hicks

David Matthew Hicks (b.1975), after a troubled childhood in South Australia, converted to Islam and undertook military training with Al Qaeda in Af...

Henry Bournes Higgins

Henry Bournes Higgins (1851-1929) was a liberal who believed in a positive role for the state in the economy. He was a member of the Victorian (18...

Harold Holt

Harold Holt’s (1908-1967) short-lived prime ministership ended in tragedy when he drowned during the 1967 Christmas holidays. Holt entered Parliame...

7th Earl of (John Adrian Louis Hope) Hopetoun

The Earl of Hopetoun (1860-1908), a Scottish aristocrat and politician, was governor of Victoria in 1889-95 and a fervent supporter of Federation. ...

John Winston Howard

John Howard (b.1939) served for the second-longest prime ministerial term after Robert Menzies. When he lost the seat of Bennelong in 2007, he also...

William Morris (Billy) Hughes

William (Billy) Hughes (1862-1952) was the central figure in Australian politics for most of the First World War. Hughes entered the New South Wale...

George Hughes

George Hughes is known to history only in 1796-1800 when he operated the printing press brought to New South Wales in 1788. He printed government ...

John Basson Humffray

John Basson Humffray (1824-91) arrived on the Victorian goldfields from Wales in 1853. Secretary of the Ballarat Reform League, he saw the diggers...

Sir Isaac Alfred Isaacs

Sir Isaac Alfred Isaacs (1855-1948) was a Federationist and a progressive Liberal member of the Victorian (1892-1901) and federal (1901-06) parliam...

Henry Jeanneret

Henry Jeanneret (1802-86) was a surgeon and dentist from England. Appointed superintendent of the Aboriginal settlement on Flinders Island in 1842...

Cecilia Annie John

Cecilia Annie John (1877-1955) was a founder of the Womenís Peace Army in Melbourne in 1915, which advocated equal rights for women, control of pro...

George Johnston

George Johnston (1764-1823) was a military officer, trader in spirits and successful farmer and grazier in New South Wales. As the most senior off...

Paul John Keating

Paul Keating (b.1944) began his political career early, helping his father hand out leaflets in Bankstown during the great Labor Split of the 1950s...

Sir John Robert Kerr

Sir John Robert Kerr (1914-91) was a judge (1966-72) of the Commonwealth Industrial Court and Chief Justice (1972-74) of the NSW Supreme Court befo...

Philip Gidley King

Philip Gidley King (1758-1808) was a naval officer who served as lieutenant-governor of Norfolk Island (1788-90 and 1791-96) and lieutenant-governo...

Charles Cameron Kingston

Charles Cameron Kingston (1850-1908) was a radical liberal member (1881-1900) of the South Australian parliament and Premier in 1893-99. His gover...

Joseph Coles Kirby

Joseph Coles Kirby (1837-1924) was a leading Congregational minister who, in Adelaide from 1880, campaigned solidly for temperance, womenís rights ...

Peter Lalor

Peter Lalor (1827-89) migrated from Ireland to Victoria in 1852, attracted by the gold discoveries. A believer in private property and liberal ins...

John Dunmore Lang

John Dunmore Lang (1799-1878), a turbulent Presbyterian clergyman from Scotland, called for education and free immigration to improve morality in N...

John Thomas Lang

John Thomas Lang (1876-1975) was an estate agent and Labor politician, equally suspicious of communism and capitalism. He was Premier of New South...

Carmen Mary Lawrence

Carmen Mary Lawrence (b.1948), a psychologist, was a Labor member of the Western Australian parliament in 1986-94. She became Australiaís first fe...

Louisa Lawson

Louisa Lawson (1848-1920) wrote poetry and short stories and started the magazine Dawn in Sydney in 1888, announcing that it would publicise wrongd...

Mary Lee

Mary Lee (1821-1909) sailed from Ireland to Adelaide in 1879. A practical-minded Christian and social reformer, she was active in the Social Purit...

Sir Neil Elliott Lewis

Sir Neil Elliott Lewis (1858-1935), a public-spirited lawyer, was a member (1886-1903 and 1909-22) of the Tasmanian parliament and Premier (1899-19...

Vincent Lingiari

Vincent Lingiari (1919?-88) became a head stockman on Wave Hill cattle station, Northern Territory, and a highly respected Gurindji ‘law boss’. I...

George Loveless

George Loveless (1797-1874) was an English ploughman, community leader and Wesleyan preacher of exemplary character. In 1833 he helped form the Fr...

Annie Lowe

Annie Lowe (1828?-1910) lived in the outback before moving to Melbourne and becoming a founder of the Victorian Womenís Suffrage Society in 1884. ...

Sir William John Lyne

Sir William John Lyne (1844-1913), a farmer and grazier, entered NSW parliament in 1880. Protectionist and anti-Federationist, as Premier (1899-19...

Joseph Aloysius (Joe) Lyons

One of the great dramas of parliament’s history began with the defection of “Honest Joe Lyons” (1879-1939) from Labor in 1931. Anti-socialist polit...

Dame Enid Muriel Lyons

Dame Enid Muriel Lyons (1897-1981) supported the political career of her husband, Joseph Lyons, before becoming the first female member (1943-51) o...

Edward Koiki Mabo

Edward Koiki Mabo (1936-92) left Mer (Meer), Murray Islands in the Torres Strait, for Queensland in 1957 and held labouring jobs. Pitting himself ...

John Macarthur

John Macarthur (1767?-1834) was an army officer, entrepreneur and landowner who pioneered the fine-wool industry in New South Wales. He envisaged ...

Maurice Margarot

Maurice Margarot (1745-1815), a merchant sympathetic to the revolutionaries in France, urged fiscal and electoral reform, shorter parliaments and a...

Albert McColl

Albert Stewart McColl (1902-1933) was a mounted constable with the Central Australian and then the Northern Territory police. In 1933 he was stati...

John McEwen

John McEwen (1900-1980) was deputy prime minister when Harold Holt drowned, and was commissioned as Prime Minister while the Liberals chose a new l...

Shirley McKerrow

Shirley Margaret McKerrow (b.1933), a businesswoman, joined the Country (later National Country then National) Party of Australia in 1968. She con...

William McMahon

William (Billy) McMahon’s (1908-1988) career spanned the whole of the twenty-three year reign that began with the Liberal triumph of 1949, when Lab...

Robert Gordon Menzies

Robert Menzies (1894-1978) was prime minister for a total of nineteen years and a leading figure in federal parliament during his entire period in ...

Thomas Muir

Thomas Muir (1765-1799) was a Scottish lawyer who, influenced by the French Revolution, advocated parliamentary and constitutional reforms. For re...

Richard O'Connor

Richard Edward O'Connor (1851-1912), a barrister, was an avowed Protectionist in New South Wales parliament (1888-98). He worked energetically for ...

Pat O'Shane

Patricia June O'Shane (b.1941) was a Queensland teacher who decided that Aborigines needed their own lawyers. Studying in Sydney, she became the f...

Earle Page

Earle Page (1880-1961) was prime minister for only nineteen days after the death of Joseph Lyons, yet he was a significant figure in Australian pub...

Thomas Palmer

Thomas Fyshe Palmer (1747-1802) was a humane and cultured Unitarian minister serving in Scotland. For arranging the printing and distribution of a...

Henry Parkes

Sir Henry Parkes (1815-1896), the leading figure in nineteenth-century Australian politics, was premier of New South Wales in 1872-75, 1877, 1878-8...

Vladimir Mikhailovich Petrov

Vladimir Mikhailovich Petrov (1907-1991) was a middle-ranking officer in the Soviet Unionís intelligence service. In 1951 he and his wife were pos...

Evdokia Alexeevna Petrova

Evdokia Alexeevna Petrova (1914-2002) was a junior officer in the Soviet Unionís intelligence service. In 1951 she and her husband were posted to ...

Arthur Phillip

Arthur Phillip (1738-1814) was a naval officer appointed as the first governor of New South Wales (1788-92). Inspired by his vision of a new outpo...

Sir Robert Philp

Sir Robert Philp (1851-1922), a ship-owner, shipping agent, merchant and speculator from North Queensland, was a member (1886-1915) of State parlia...

Dame Annabelle Jane Mary Rankin

Dame Annabelle Jane Mary Rankin (1908-1986), a Liberal senator from Queensland (1947-71), was the first female Federal Opposition Whip (1947-49) an...

Robert William Rede

Robert William Rede (1815-1904), a well-connected Englishman, was a miner on the Victorian goldfields before becoming commissioner in charge of the...

Elizabeth Anne Reid

Elizabeth Anne Reid (b.1942) held office as adviser to Prime Minister Gough Whitlam on the welfare of women and children in 1973-75. Her commitmen...

George Reid

Born in Scotland, Reid came to Australia at the age of seven. Caught up in his early teens in the public debates over manhood suffrage, he joined t...

Bessie Mabel Rischbieth

Bessie Mabel Rischbieth (1874-1967) was a feminist and leader for six decades of Western Australian, national and international womenís organisatio...

Kevin Michael Rudd

Kevin Rudd (b.1957) became Australia’s 26th Prime Minister after the Australian Labor Party won the 2007 federal election. He was the first Prime M...

Rose Scott

Rose Scott (1847-1925) worked all her public life for measures to reduce menís power over women and to expand womenís material options. A leader o...

James Henry Scullin

James Henry ‘Jim’ Scullin (1876-1953) was Australia’s ninth prime minister. He had the difficult task of managing Australia’s economy with its subs...

William Skirving

William Skirving (?-1796) was a highly principled farmer who sacrificed much for his ideals. Active in the political reform movement in Edinburgh,...

Catherine Helen Spence

Catherine Helen Spence (1825-1910) was a respected South Australian novelist, social commentator, Unitarian preacher, educationist and worker for t...

Sir James Stirling

Sir James Stirling (1791-1865), a naval officer, persuaded the British government to establish a colony on the west coast of Australia. He founded...

Jessie Mary Grey Street

Jessie Mary Grey Street (1889-1970) was Australiaís leading feminist by 1943, prominent in national and international womenís organisations seeking...

Dame Dorothy Margaret Tangney

Dame Dorothy Margaret Tangney (1907-1985) was a Western Australian teacher, a voluntary community-worker among the poor of Fremantle and an active ...

Tjangamarra (Jandamarra)

Tjangamarra (Jandamarra) (1870?-1897) was a Bunuba man in Western Australia who became a noted stockman and police tracker. In 1894 he began a mil...

Malcolm Bligh Turnbull

Malcolm Turnbull (b. 1954) was a lawyer, journalist and businessman who rose to national prominence as head of the Australian Republican Movement, ...

Sir George Turner

Sir George Turner (1851-1916), an attorney and a Liberal Protectionist of moderate views and co-operative nature, was Victorianís first Australian-...

Robert Wardell

Robert Wardell (1793-1834) arrived in New South Wales from England in 1824 and immediately began the Australian newspaper with his friend William C...

John Christian Watson

John Christian ‘Chris’ Watson (1867-1941) was born Johan Christian Tanck, in Valparaiso, Chile. His mother – an Irish woman who had emigrated to Ne...

Ivy Lavinia Weber

Ivy Lavinia Weber (1892-1976) was a physical culturist and office-bearer in numerous community and womenís organisations. In 1937 she became the s...

William Charles Wentworth

William Charles Wentworth (1790-1872), an explorer, landowner and politician in New South Wales, was the foremost figure in the struggle for respon...

Reverend John West

John West (1809-1873) arrived in Van Diemen’s Land from England in 1838 as a Congregational minister. He led the movement to abolish transportatio...

Edward Gough Whitlam

Gough Whitlam (1916-2014) entered Parliament in 1953 and made his early political career in the worst years of the Labor Split, when it appeared hi...

James Robert Wilshire

James Robert Wilshire (1809-1860), a native-born manufacturer, served in the New South Wales Legislative Council (1855-56 and 1858-60) and Legislat...

Dhakiyarr Wirrpanda

Dhakiyarr Wirrpanda (c.1900-34?) was a leader of the Dhayyi-speaking people of north-eastern Arnhem Land. During a confrontation on Woodah Island ...