Linda Reynolds

Linda Karen Reynolds (born 16 May 1965) is an Australian politician.

Reynolds was born in Perth on 16 May 1965.

She is the daughter of Laith and Jan Reynolds and has two brothers; she has said she was raised with "strong Christian values".

Her grandfather Alfred Reynolds served in the Parliament of Western Australia as a member of the Australian Labor Party (ALP).

Her maternal grandparents were English immigrants.

Reynolds grew up in the suburb of Gooseberry Hill and attended St Brigid's College.

During her childhood she lived in Indonesia for a period where her father was a manager for Philips.

The family learned to speak Indonesian and her mother took a degree in Indonesian studies.

Reynolds holds the degree of Bachelor of Commerce from Curtin University and also holds graduate certificates in training and development (Southern Cross University), defence management (University of Canberra) and strategic studies (Australian Defence College).

Reynolds enlisted in the Australian Army Reserve in 1984, aged 19.

She served variously as an officer cadet, regional logistics officer, training development officer, military instructor at the Army Command and Staff College, commanding officer of the 5th Combat Service Support Battalion, director of the Active Standby Staff Group, project director at the Canberra Deep Space Communications Complex, strategy development director of Raytheon Australia, director of the Accountability Model Implementation Project, and director of the Army Strategic Reform Program.

Reynolds joined the Liberal Party in 1987.

Prior to her election to parliament, she held various positions in the party's organisational wing.

She also worked as an electorate officer and ministerial advisor, notably as chief of staff and senior adviser to justice minister Chris Ellison from 2001 to 2003.

She was a campaign manager for the divisions of Pearce and Hasluck and served as a deputy federal director from 2006 to 2008.

She was awarded the Conspicuous Service Cross in the 2011 Australia Day Honours for "outstanding achievement as the Director of Army Strategic Reform Program coordination".

She was adjutant general of the Army Reserve from 2012 to 2013.

On attaining the rank of brigadier in 2012, Reynolds became the first woman in the Australian Army Reserve to be promoted to a star rank.

She was initially elected to the Senate at the 2013 federal election, but the result was voided and she was re-elected at a supplementary election in 2014.

Reynolds was elected to the Senate at the 2013 federal election from third position on the Liberal Party's ticket in Western Australia.

However, her position was placed in doubt when the High Court ordered a fresh half-Senate election after determining that there were missing ballot papers.

She is a member of the Liberal Party and has served as a Senator for Western Australia since 2014.

Prior to 2014, she had mentored political leaders from Thailand, Papua New Guinea, Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Reynolds was successful in the re-run and her Senate term commenced on 1 July 2014.

She was subsequently re-elected to the Senate at the 2016 federal election and the 2019 federal election, leading the Liberal Party's ticket in the latter.

In the Morrison government she served as Assistant Minister for Home Affairs (2018–2019), Minister for Defence Industry (2019), Minister for Emergency Management and North Queensland Recovery (2019), Minister for Defence (2019–2021), and Minister for Government Services and the National Disability Insurance Scheme (2021–2022).

She chaired a number of Senate committees prior to her elevation to the ministry in 2018.

Reynolds is a member of the Centrist faction of the Liberal Party, after previously being aligned with the Moderate/Modern Liberal faction during the Morrison government years.

During the 2018 Liberal Party of Australia leadership spills, Reynolds reportedly supported the incumbent prime minister Malcolm Turnbull in the first ballot on 21 August before switching her support to Scott Morrison in the second ballot on 24 August.

On 23 August, she told the Senate that she was "distressed and disturbed" by the behaviour of some Liberal MPs during the leadership conflict, which had "no place in my party or this chamber".

In August 2018, Reynolds was appointed Assistant Minister for Home Affairs in the First Morrison Ministry, serving under Peter Dutton.

She held senior ministerial office as a cabinet minister in the Morrison government from 2019 to 2022.

Before entering parliament Reynolds was a member of the Australian Army Reserve for nearly 30 years and was the first woman in the reserve to attain the rank of brigadier.

She was elevated to Cabinet in March 2019 as Minister for Defence Industry, as part of a planned transition to the role of Minister for Defence following Christopher Pyne's decision to retire at the 2019 federal election.

She was also appointed to the new role of Minister for Emergency Management and North Queensland Recovery, having previously held responsibility for disaster recovery in the Assistant Minister for Home Affairs position.

In early 2019, she was a strong opponent of the medevac bill that expanded the medical evacuation of asylum seekers from offshore processing facilities to Australia.

In a speech to the Senate, she said that the bill would encourage unauthorised arrivals by boat and that as a result the military would "have to recover the bloated corpses of babies and women mauled by sharks".

Reynolds was appointed Minister for Defence in May 2019, following the Coalition's victory at the 2019 federal election, the second woman to hold the position after Marise Payne.

Her appointment was cautiously welcomed by Neil James, the president of the Australian Defence Association, who noted her lack of ministerial experience.

In May 2020, Reynolds was accused of misleading the Senate by Mark Sullivan, the chair of the Defence Honours and Awards Appeal Tribunal, over her rejection of a posthumous Victoria Cross for Australia for Teddy Sheean.