Simon Crean

 

The Hon. Simon Crean
Leader of the Opposition
In office 2001 – 2003
Preceded by	Kim Beazley
Succeeded by	Mark Latham
Constituency	Hotham
Born	26 February 1949 (1949--) (age 58) Melbourne, Victoria
Political party	Australian Labor Party

Simon Findlay Crean (born 26 February 1949) an Australian politician, was leader of the Australian Labor Party and Leader of the Opposition at the Federal level, from November 2001 to 2 December 2003. He currently is the member for the Division of Hotham and is the son of former Whitlam Government minister Frank Crean. He is the Shadow Cabinet as Minister for Trade and Regional Development.

Early career

Crean was born in Melbourne, Victoria. He is the son of Frank Crean, a federal Labor MP from 1951 to 1977, who was at separate times Treasurer, Trade Minister, and Deputy Prime Minister in the Gough Whitlam government. He was educated at Middle Park Central School, Melbourne High School and Monash University. Following his graduation from Monash University with degrees in economics and law, Simon Crean worked in a number of trade unions before becoming an official with the Storeman and Packers Union, of which he became General Secretary in 1979.

In 1977, his father Frank Crean retired from Federal politics and made the seat of Melbourne Ports vacant. The ALP pre-selection was between Simon Crean and Clyde Holding. Holding defeated Crean in the ALP preselection for Melbourne Ports.

In 1981 Crean became Vice-President of the Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU), and in 1985 he was elected the organisation's President. In this role he played a key role in negotiating agreements on wages and other industrial issues with the Labor government of Bob Hawke. In 1990 he left the ACTU to go into politics.

At the 1990 election, Crean was elected to the seat of Hotham in the Australian House of Representatives, and immediately entered the Hawke ministry as Minister for Science. He became Minister for Primary Industries and Energy in 1991 and Minister for Employment, Education and Training in 1993.

Party leader

Following the Labor Party's 1996 election defeat, Crean contested the deputy leadership of the party but was defeated by Gareth Evans, 42 votes to 37. He was an Opposition front-bencher until Labor's defeat at the 1998 election. He was then elected Deputy Leader of the Opposition and became shadow Treasurer in succession to Evans. In November 2001, following Labor's third consecutive election defeat, he was elected unopposed as the Leader of the Opposition following the resignation of Kim Beazley.

On February 4, 2003, Crean led the Labor Party in condemning Prime Minister John Howard's decision to commit Australian troops to the Iraq War.

Through most of 2003, consistently poor polling led to constant speculation of a leadership challenge by Beazley, though a reasonably successful Budget reply speech and the controversy over Peter Hollingworth gave Crean a small boost in popularity. Nevertheless, to end the constant rumblings over a challenge, Crean called for a leadership spill. Polls continued to suggest that the public much preferred Beazley to Crean; nevertheless, when the vote was taken on 16 June 2003, Crean won by 58 votes to 34.

By November, however, polls continued to show Crean losing more ground to Howard as preferred Prime Minister. On 27 November 2003 a group of his senior colleagues told Crean that he had lost the party's support and should resign. Crean said he would "sleep on it". On 28 November, Crean announced that he would stand down, becoming the first federal Labor leader to be replaced without having contested an election, joining Liberal Alexander Downer who was leader of his party for several months in 1995.

Post leadership career

After Crean's resignation, Beazley and the Labor Party's Treasury spokesperson, Mark Latham, announced that they would contest the Labor leadership. At the meeting of Labor MPs on 2 December, Latham defeated Beazley by 47 votes to 45.

Latham then appointed Crean as the Opposition's shadow Treasurer, which gave him a continued prominent role in Australian politics. However, in the aftermath of Labor's defeat in the 2004 election, many in the Labor Party felt that Crean's performance in the campaign was poor and he was partly responsible for Labor's defeat: as a result, Crean resigned from his Shadow Treasurer position. At Latham's insistence he was re-elected to the Opposition front bench and became Shadow Minister for Trade.

Crean retained this position when Beazley returned to the leadership in January 2005. In the June 2005 reshuffle, however, Crean was demoted to Shadow Minister for Regional Development. He faced a preselection challenge for his seat from Martin Pakula, a member of his former union, a move which he blamed on Kim Beazley, Hong Lim, and the Labor Right. Beazley refused to publicly support either candidate, but several front-benchers including Julia Gillard supported Crean. Crean won preselection after an unexpectedly strong win, recording around 70% of the votes in the first stage of voting (a vote which involves local ALP members in that area who have voting rights) led to his opponent's withdrawal. Since his victory Crean has singled out Senator Stephen Conroy for his part in the preselection challenge describing his front-bench colleague as "venal" and "one of the most disloyal people I've ever worked with in my life".^[1]

Following the defeat of Kim Beazley and election of Kevin Rudd as Federal Labor leader in December 2006, Crean was reappointed as Shadow Trade Minister and also retained responsibility for regional development.

References

External links

• Australian Trade Union Archives biographical entry
• Crean falls on his sword
• Crean resigns as shadow Treasurer
• Mark Latham steps in to save Crean
• Simon Crean's Personal Website
• McMullin, Ross, The Light on the Hill The Australian Labor Party 1891-1991

Parliament of Australia
Preceded by Lewis Kent	Member for Hotham 1990 – present	Incumbent
Political offices
Preceded by Barry Jones	Minister for Science and Technology 1990–1991	Succeeded by Ross Free
Preceded by John Kerin	Minister for Primary Industries and Energy 1991–1993	Succeeded by Bob Collins
Preceded by Kim Beazley	Minister for Employment, Education and Training 1993–1996	Succeeded by Amanda Vanstone
Party political offices
Preceded by Gareth Evans	Deputy Leader of the Australian Labor Party 1998–2001	Succeeded by Jenny Macklin
Preceded by Kim Beazley	Leader of the Australian Labor Party 2001–2003	Succeeded by Mark Latham

Leaders of the Australian Labor Party
Watson | Fisher | Hughes | Tudor | Charlton | Scullin | Curtin | Chifley | Evatt | Calwell | Whitlam | Hayden | Hawke | Keating | Beazley | Crean | Latham | Beazley | Rudd

Current Members of the Australian House of Representatives from Victoria
Andrews | Bailey | Barresi | Billson | Broadbent | Burke | Byrne | Corcoran | Costello | Crean | Danby | Ferguson | Forrest | Georgiou | Gibbons | Gillard | Griffin | Hawker | Hunt | King | Jenkins | Macklin | McArthur | McGauran | Mirabella | B. O'Connor | G. O'Connor | Pearce | Robb | Roxon | Sercombe | Smith | Stone | Tanner | Thomson | Vamvakinou | Wood
Labor | Liberal | National

Persondata
NAME	Crean, Simon Findlay
ALTERNATIVE NAMES
SHORT DESCRIPTION	Australian politician
DATE OF BIRTH	26 February 1949
PLACE OF BIRTH	Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
DATE OF DEATH	living
PLACE OF DEATH

Donate to Wikimedia