Anna Burke

Anna Elizabeth Burke (born 1 January 1966) is an Australian former politician and Speaker of the Australian House of Representatives.

She is a current Member of the Administrative Appeals Tribunal and an Officer of the Order of Australia.

Burke was born on 1 January 1966 in Melbourne and was one of five children.

Her father was an electrician, and her mother a kindergarten teacher.

She attended Presentation College, Windsor.

Burke was diagnosed with dyslexia in grade 5, which led her to take her high school exams orally.

Burke had joined the Ashwood branch of the Labor Party in 1986, and in 1997 she was preselected for the Division of Chisholm by the Labor Party.

The division was then held by Liberal Minister for Health and Family Services Michael Wooldridge.

She graduated from Monash University in 1988 with a Bachelor of Arts degree with Honours in English Literature, and later from the University of Melbourne in 1994 with a Master of Commerce with Honours in Industrial Relations and Human Resource Management.

Burke worked as a trade union official and human resources manager.

In this capacity, she worked for VicRoads from 1988 to 1993 and for Victoria University (then the Victorian Institute of Technology) from 1993 to 1994.

In 1994, she joined the Finance Sector Union as their National Industrial Officer, responsible for coordinating campaigns and being a spokesperson.

In 1994, Burke married Stephen Burgess.

Burke began her career working as a trade union official and human resources manager for several organisations, before being pre-selected for Chisholm by the Labor Party in 1997.

Burke was a member of the Australian House of Representatives from 1998 to 2016, representing the Division of Chisholm in Victoria for the Australian Labor Party.

She was elected at the 1998 federal election to the House of Representatives.

She was not expected to win, as Wooldridge had held the seat for more than 11 years, but after Wooldridge switched to the electorate of Casey, she won the seat at the 1998 federal election against Peter Vlahos of the Liberal Party with a 4.67% swing to Labor (2PP).

The couple have two children; in 1999, Burke became the second woman to give birth while a sitting Member of the Australian Parliament when her first child was born.

Burke had her second child in 2002.

In 2005, Burke submitted a private member's bill to the house that proposed an early form of the subsequently created Do Not Call Register, which allowed homeowners to exempt their landlines from telemarketing.

After Labor's win at the 2007 federal election, Burke was elected as Deputy Speaker of the Australian House of Representatives, and thus presided over the House in the Speaker's absence.

In 2008, Prime Minister Kevin Rudd was absent from the house as he was visiting victims of a flood in Mackay, Queensland.

In protest of Rudd's absence, the Opposition brought a cardboard cut-out of Rudd into the chamber.

Burke requested that the "offensive article" be removed from the house, along with the Member for Cowper, Luke Hartsuyker.

Hartsuyker's refusal to leave the house caused Burke to suspend the sitting of parliament completely.

While Deputy Speaker, Burke argued for websites that promoted eating disorders to be banned, but was not successful.

Burke continued to advocate for awareness around eating disorders throughout her time in parliament.

In 2011, Speaker Harry Jenkins announced his resignation from the Speakership, citing a desire to be more involved in Labor Party matters as a backbencher.

The member for the division of Fisher, Peter Slipper, was nominated by the government to become Speaker.

In response, the Manager of Opposition Business, Christopher Pyne, nominated a number of government members to become Speaker, starting with Burke.

All government members nominated declined their nominations.

Slipper accepted his, and took the chair as Speaker.

Burke accepted the Government's nomination for the position of Deputy Speaker on the same day, and was elected to that position following a ballot.

From 2012 to 2013, she was Speaker of the Australian House of Representatives.

She was the second woman to become Speaker.

Burke became Speaker in 2012, after the resignation of Peter Slipper due to allegations of fraud and sexual harassment.

She held the office until the 2013 federal election, where the Rudd government was defeated.

Burke retired from politics at the 2016 federal election.

While in parliament, both as a member of the government and the opposition, Burke campaigned against offshore processing and mandatory detention of refugees, policies supported by all major parties at the time.

After politics, Burke has served as a Member of the Administrative Appeals Tribunal, and has served on the boards of several foundations and companies.