Peter Costello

Costello is a descendant of Irish immigrant Patrick Costello, who was expelled from the Parliament of Victoria in the 1860s for electoral fraud.

Peter Howard Costello (born 14 August 1957) is an Australian businessman, lawyer and former politician who served as the treasurer of Australia in government of John Howard from 1996 to 2007.

He is the longest-serving treasurer in Australia's history.

Costello was born on 14 August 1957 in Melbourne into a middle-class family of practising Christians.

He was the second of three children; his elder brother, Tim, is a prominent Baptist minister and former CEO of World Vision Australia.

Costello was educated at Carey Baptist Grammar School (graduating in 1974) and Monash University, where he studied arts and law, graduating with honours in 1982.

In 1977, Costello was assaulted by a left-wing student politician, receiving mainstream media attention for the first time in his career as a result.

After graduating, Costello became more conservative but retained progressive views on some social issues.

During the 1980s, Costello was a solicitor at the law firm Mallesons Stephen Jaques, then became a barrister and represented employers in some of Australia's best-known industrial relations disputes.

In the late 1980s, he was identified as part of the New Right movement, which was organised to some extent in the H. R. Nicholls Society.

In 1982 Costello married Tanya (née Coleman), daughter of writer and former Liberal politician Peter Coleman and historian Verna Coleman.

In 1983 and 1984, Costello represented the National Farmers' Federation in legal action against the Australasian Meat Industry Employees Union (AMIEU).

The AMIEU was seeking a unit tally system to be set up in abattoirs in the Northern Territory.

The dispute focussed on one abattoir, Mudginberri, which chose to fight the AMIEU claim.

Ultimately the AMIEU claim was unsuccessful.

In 1984 he was a founding member of the H. R. Nicholls Society, a think tank on industrial relations.

Costello became counsel to organisations representing small business and rose to prominence in the 1985 Dollar Sweets case, as junior counsel assisting Alan Goldberg QC, successfully representing a confectionery company involved in a bitter industrial dispute.

In his student years, Costello was active in student politics.

For a time, he was an office-bearer of the Social Democratic Students Association of Victoria, an affiliate of the Balaclava Branch of Australian Young Labor.

Costello was a member of parliament (MP) of the Australian House of Representatives from 1990 to 2009, representing the Division of Higgins.

In 1990, Costello defeated sitting member Roger Shipton in a preselection ballot for the comfortably safe Liberal electorate of Higgins, the seat once held by Harold Holt and John Gorton.

He entered the House of Representatives at the age of 32.

Costello made his maiden speech in May 1990 and mentioned "government should be subservient to the citizen; the Executive accountable to the representative parliament; and the monopoly give way in the face of the individual."

Following the resignation of Andrew Peacock, Costello voted for John Hewson to replace Peacock as Liberal Leader and Costello was made shadow minister for Consumer affairs and later Shadow Attorney General.

However Hewson despite launching Peter's local campaign in Higgins, despised Costello making it clear to him that he would not be appointed a Minister in a Hewson government and always maintained suspicion about Costello due to his admiration for John Howard.

On one occasion Hewson accused Costello of bad mouthing him to journalist Laurie Oakes which Costello denied.

Hewson's shock defeat at the 1993 election, Costello believes, can be attributed to Hewson lacking the experience to know which things to try to change and which things to avoid trying to change.

Costello believed Hewson fought everyone from Churches and Welfare groups over the GST to the Superannuation and Medicare organisations and recipients.

Costello claimed he found it hard to promote the Liberal party's zero Tariff policy to the car industry.

Costello's profile became higher following the 1993 election becoming Shadow Finance Minister after his failure to become deputy leader.

After the "sports rorts affair" with Sport Minister Ros Kelly: after revealing Kelly did not handle funding properly for the policy, Hewson and Costello demanded she resign, and she did, this and other factors made Costello be seen as alternative leader to Hewson.

He also served as the Deputy Leader of the Liberal Party from 1994 to 2007.

Hewson was deposed as Liberal leader in May 1994, Costello supported Alexander Downer for the leadership, becoming his Deputy Leader and shadow Treasurer.

What may have prevented Costello from challenging Hewson for the leadership himself was that it would have proven correct an accusation by Victorian Liberal Premier Jeff Kennett that Costello and his friend, former Victorian Liberal party president Michael Kroger, had undermined Hewson's leadership prior to Hewson calling the leadership spill that partly occurred because of Costello in the first place.

However, Downer resigned in January 1995.

Costello did not seek the leadership, instead supporting John Howard.

It was revealed in July 2006 that this was due to a December 1994 meeting between Howard, Costello and Ian McLachlan during which Howard allegedly agreed to stand aside after one and a half terms as prime minister in return for Costello's agreement not to challenge for the leadership.

On 18 September 2008, Costello was appointed as chairman of the World Bank's new Independent Advisory Board (IAB) to provide advice on anti-corruption measures.

Costello has served as Chairman of Nine Entertainment Co. since February 2016.

Costello is Chairman of the Board of Guardians of Australian Future Fund.