Cory Bernardi
Cory Bernardi is an Australian conservative political commentator and former politician. He was a Senator for South Australia from 2006 to 2020, and was the leader of the Australian Conservatives, a minor political party he founded in 2017 but disbanded in 2019. He is a former member of the Liberal Party of Australia, having represented the party in the Senate from 2006 to 2017.
Early life and education
Cory Bernardi was born in Adelaide on 6 November 1969. His father was an Italian immigrant who migrated to Australia in 1958. His maternal grandfather was a trade unionist and staunch Labor supporter.Bernardi took a business and management course at South Australian Institute of Technology, before winning a scholarship and furthering his rowing career at the Australian Institute of Sport in 1989.
After a back injury terminated his rowing career, Bernardi travelled in Europe and Africa, working as a labourer. Returning to Australia, he managed the family's hotel before spending four months in a hospital with tuberculosis. He subsequently worked as a stockbroker and financial adviser before entering politics.
Career
Bernardi entered politics in 2006 when he was selected by the Liberal Party to fill a Senate seat vacancy for South Australia left by the resignation of Robert Hill. During his time in Parliament, Bernardi attracted controversy over several statements and views. On 7 February 2017, he announced that he would be leaving the Liberal Party to form his own party, the Australian Conservatives. In June 2019, Bernardi announced that he was disbanding the Australian Conservatives and the party was voluntarily deregistered by the Australian Electoral Commission on 25 June 2019. Bernardi announced his resignation from politics on 19 November 2019, and on 20 January 2020 resigned from the Senate with immediate effect.After leaving the Senate, Bernardi became a commentator and podcaster with Sky News Australia.
Rowing career
Bernardi made state representative appearances for South Australia in the State Youth VIII at the Australian Rowing Championships in 1987 and 1988. In 1988, as part of a Mercantile Rowing Club eight, he won the Ladies' Challenge Plate—open to 2nd grade/varsity/college crews below the heavyweight international standard—at the Henley Royal Regatta in England.In 1989, Bernardi was selected in the seven seat of the South Australian Men's Senior VIII. Unfortunately, the nationals interstate events that year were cancelled when a cyclone hit the Wellington Dam course in WA, part-way through the programme of events. Three weeks later at Carrum in Victoria, Bernardi's South Australian crew placed second in an unofficial men's eight race attended by the Victorian, Western Australian and South Australian crews who raced for the Patten Cup. That same year Bernardi became an Australian national representative when he was selected in the three seat of the coxless four which competed at the 1989 World Rowing Championships in Bled—formerly of Yugoslavia but what is now the Republic of Slovenia—and placed tenth. Later that year Bernardi suffered a back injury that effectively ended his rowing career.
Political career
Elections to the Senate
After South Australian Senator Robert Hill resigned from the Senate to become Ambassador to the United Nations in March 2006, Bernardi was selected by the Liberal Party to fill the vacancy, officially commencing his senate term on 4 May 2006. On 17 February 2007, Bernardi was pre-selected ahead of Simon Birmingham and Senator Grant Chapman by the State Council of the South Australian Liberal Party to be the number one candidate on the South Australian Liberal Senate ticket for the federal election to be held in late 2007. At the election, Bernardi was elected to a full six-year term. He was again given the first place on the Liberal ticket at the 2013 federal election and was re-elected. Following a double dissolution of Parliament at the 2016 federal election, Bernardi was re-elected from the second place on the Liberal ticket. He was elected for a term of six years, ending on 30 June 2022.Opposition under Brendan Nelson: 2007–2008
In December 2007, Bernardi was appointed the federal Coalition's Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Families and Community Services. On 19 March 2008, Bernardi was named in a story published in The Australian newspaper as having been linked to a scheme that sold financial advice on how divorcees could hide money from their former spouses. In a media statement released shortly after the article was published, Bernardi described the story as "a rehash of a factually incorrect story that first appeared in 2006 before my appointment to the Senate." Bernardi claimed that he had been "made aware that a colleague been approaching numerous journalists in an attempt to 'push' this matter as a means of personally attacking me." In a statement he went on to say, "I find it disappointing that there are people who clearly pine to background journalists with half-truths and mischievous suggestions in an attempt to smear others. The people who creep out of their darkened closets to resurrect previously discredited accusations do no service to themselves or the community. Politics is a battle of ideas, not a battle of smears."On 20 March 2008, Bernardi introduced a motion calling for a Senate inquiry into swearing on television and the effectiveness of the Code of Practice after a television show was broadcast at 8.30 pm containing the word "fuck" eighty times in 40 minutes. The Senate supported the motion. Then in June, Bernardi stated his personal view on onlineopinion.com.au regarding a proposed reform relating to same-sex relationships. He stated, "Same-sex relationships are not the same as marital relationships and to treat them the same is to suspend common sense." A month later, Bernardi questioned the ethics of granting human rights to great apes while ignoring the rights of the unborn child on the ABC "unleashed" website.
In August 2008, the Herald Sun newspaper reported that the Federal Parliamentary Library had, following a request from Bernardi, identified a loophole in government legislation that allowed some women who aborted their pregnancies to claim a $5,000 "baby bonus". The Government later stated that the bonus was not available for aborted pregnancies and was committed to following up on any such occurrences.
Opposition under Malcolm Turnbull: 2008–2009
In September 2008, new federal Liberal leader Malcolm Turnbull appointed Bernardi the Coalition Spokesman for Disabilities, Carers and the Voluntary Sector. In October, Bernardi caused a stir with a speech to the Senate against the Same-Sex Relationships Bill 2008 supported by the Liberal Party. The bill led to discontent within the party's conservative faction—of which Bernardi was a key figure. Turnbull was "unhappy that Party authority was being challenged" by Bernardi. In Bernardi's speech, he complained that society should not "throw open the doors and welcome into the fold those whose relationships are uncharacteristic of the most basic elements of a marital union." The next morning Turnbull rang Bernardi to "chip him", having felt the speech was intemperate in tone and that it went against the party line and Turnbull's own leadership.Bernardi was removed from the Shadow Ministry by Turnbull in February 2009 after reportedly making unsubstantiated claims regarding a fellow Liberal MP in his weekly blog. Recalling an encounter with the Liberal MP at the Royal Adelaide Golf Club about 14 years before, he wrote:
In response to my question of why he joined the Liberal Party, the MP blithely responded "I live in a Liberal seat so I had to be a member of the Liberal Party to get into Parliament. If I lived in a Labor seat I would have joined the Labor Party." Frankly I was aghast at this response. Where was the conviction, the beliefs, the values that I believe should motivate our political leaders? Several follow up questions disclosed that the only motivation for his own political involvement was for him to become Prime Minister.
The MP involved was thought to be Christopher Pyne, who denied the allegations as "preposterous".
Opposition under Tony Abbott: 2009–2013
Following the election of Tony Abbott as the leader of the federal Liberal Party in late 2009, Bernardi was appointed Shadow Parliamentary Secretary Assisting the Leader of the Opposition and Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Infrastructure and Population Policy, and in August 2012 was appointed Deputy Manager of Opposition Business in the Senate. In September 2012, Bernardi resigned from his position as parliamentary secretary as a result of statements he had made the day before, when he argued that permitting same-sex marriages would lead to legalised polygamy and bestiality.Abbott and Turnbull Governments: 2013–2017
In January 2014, Prime Minister Tony Abbott again distanced himself from Bernardi after the latter called for a new debate on abortion, called for more flexible industrial relations laws, stated his belief in the primacy of the traditional family and claimed that non-traditional families may cause negative social outcomes, linked a secular polity with Australia having lost its way, and claimed that Christianity was under siege from both the political Greens and Islam.Bernardi was re-elected for a six-year term in the Senate at the July 2016 election.
In September 2016, Bernardi spoke in favour of the repeal of section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act, which prohibits speech that is reasonably likely to "offend, insult, humiliate or intimidate on the basis of race, colour or national or ethnic origin". In December 2016 Bernardi got into a public spat with former prime minister Tony Abbott over reports that Bernardi may start his own party.
In the same month, it was reported that Bernardi in 2009 set up an entity called the Conservative Leadership Foundation, "a fundraising entity that inhabits a grey area in the political donations system and permits gifts from foreign donors." and that "it has never made a disclosure to the Australian Electoral Commission as an associated entity, nor disclosed any political expenditure."