George Brandis

George Henry Brandis (born 22 June 1957) is an Australian former politician.

He attended Christian Brothers' High School, Lewisham before moving to Brisbane and attending Villanova College and the University of Queensland, where he graduated with a Bachelor of Arts with First-Class Honours in 1978 and a Bachelor of Laws with First-Class Honours in 1980.

Following graduation, Brandis served as Associate to Justice Charles Sheahan of the Queensland Supreme Court.

According to Peter Baume, during the 1980s Brandis was a key member of the Liberal Forum, a social or classical liberal faction within the party.

He "cut his political teeth fighting a rearguard action against the incoming tide of neoliberal economics and a muscular social conservatism that increasingly came to characterise the party in the late 1980s and early 1990s".

He was then elected a Commonwealth Scholar and obtained a Bachelor of Civil Law from Magdalen College, Oxford in 1983.

He has also been an Associate of the Australian Institute for Ethics and the Professions, and lectured in jurisprudence at the University of Queensland from 1984 to 1991.

He was a co-editor of two anthologies produced by members of the faction, titled Liberals Face the Future (1984) and Australian Liberalism: The Continuing Vision (1986).

Brandis was first chosen by the Parliament of Queensland to fill a casual vacancy following the resignation of Senator the Honourable Warwick Parer.

After a brief period as a solicitor in Brisbane, Brandis was called to the Queensland Bar in 1985 where he practised until entering politics in 2000.

Brandis developed a commercial practice with a particular emphasis on trade practices law.

He appeared as junior counsel in the High Court of Australia in the equity case Warman v Dwyer.

He was also the junior barrister for the plaintiff in the long running Multigroup Distribution Services v TNT Australia litigation in the Federal Court of Australia.

Brandis applied to be appointed Senior Counsel in the late 1990s, but was unsuccessful.

He was a Senator for Queensland from 2000 to 2018, representing the Liberal Party, and was a cabinet minister in the Abbott and Turnbull governments.

He was appointed to the Senate in 2000 to fill the casual vacancy caused by the resignation of Warwick Parer.

This was controversial, since Brandis had not practised at the bar since 2000.

In 2003, he described the Australian Greens as eco-fascist.

He was elected to a further six-year term at the 2004 election.

In his period as a senator, he has served as Chairman of the Economics Committee and as Chairman of the Senate's Children Overboard Inquiry.

Brandis has also made a number of public speeches.

Brandis applied again in 2006.

He was not on the Queensland Bar Association's shortlist; however the Chief Justice of Queensland, Paul de Jersey, who had the power to make the ultimate determination, added Brandis' name to the list, and Brandis was appointed Senior Counsel in November 2006.

He served as Minister for the Arts and Sport for the last year of the Howard government in 2007.

On 23 January 2007, Brandis was appointed Minister for the Arts and Sport, replacing Senator Rod Kemp.

Brandis claimed over $1,000 in taxpayer expenses to attend the inaugural Sir Garfield Barwick address in Sydney on 28 June 2010.

The event was billed as a Liberal party fund-raiser.

When the Coalition returned to power in 2013, Brandis became Attorney-General and Minister for the Arts.

In June 2013, the original title of Queen's Counsel was restored by the Queensland Government and Brandis was one of 70 (out of 74) Queensland SCs that chose to become QCs.

Brandis has co-edited two books on liberalism, and published academic articles on various legal topics, one of which was cited by the High Court of Australia in the landmark defamation case ABC v O'Neill.

While at the Bar, Brandis was a board member of UNICEF Australia for 10 years.

He relinquished the latter portfolio in 2015, when Malcolm Turnbull became prime minister, but was instead made Leader of the Government in the Senate.

In 2016 Brandis was caught on a "hot mic" calling his state colleagues in the Queensland Liberal National Party "very very mediocre".

Brandis announced his retirement from politics in December 2017, with effect from February 2018.

He was later High Commissioner to the United Kingdom from 2018 to 2022.

Brandis studied law at the University of Queensland and Magdalen College, Oxford.

Before entering politics he practised as a barrister.

He replaced Alexander Downer as High Commissioner to the United Kingdom in May 2018, departing the role in April 2022.

In June 2022, Brandis was appointed a professor in national security at the Australian National University.

Brandis was born in Sydney and was brought up in the inner-west suburb of Petersham.