Julie Bishop
Julie Isabel Bishop is an Australian former politician who served as Minister for Foreign Affairs from 2013 to 2018 and deputy leader of the Liberal Party from 2007 to 2018. She was the member of parliament for Curtin from 1998 to 2019. She has been the chancellor of the Australian National University since January 2020.
Bishop was born in Lobethal, South Australia, and studied law at the University of Adelaide. Prior to entering politics she worked as a commercial lawyer in Perth, Western Australia; she was the local managing partner of Clayton Utz. She was a delegate to the 1998 constitutional convention, and also served as a director of the Special Broadcasting Service and as a member of the Murdoch University senate. Bishop was elected to parliament at the 1998 federal election, representing the Division of Curtin in Perth's western suburbs. In the Howard government, she served as Minister for Ageing, Minister for Education and Science, and Minister for Women.
After the Coalition lost the 2007 election, Bishop was elected deputy leader of the Liberal Party. She was the first woman to hold the position, and was re-elected to the post at multiple leadership spills following her initial election. During her time as deputy, there were three different Liberal leaders—Brendan Nelson, Malcolm Turnbull, and Tony Abbott. When the Coalition returned to power at the 2013 election, Bishop was appointed Minister for Foreign Affairs in the Abbott government. She was Australia's first female foreign minister. Issues that arose during her tenure included changes to the Australian foreign aid program, the international military intervention against ISIL, the shooting down of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17, and the execution of Australian citizens by Indonesia.
In August 2018, Peter Dutton challenged Turnbull for the leadership of the Liberal Party, due to dissatisfaction from the party's conservative wing. Turnbull defeated Dutton in a leadership ballot, but tensions continued to mount and the party voted in favour of holding a second spill; Bishop chose to be a candidate. In the second vote, Bishop was eliminated in the first round by Peter Dutton and Scott Morrison, with Morrison elected as party leader in the second round. She declined to retain the foreign affairs portfolio in the Morrison Ministry, instead moving to the backbench. Bishop announced her retirement from politics on 21 February 2019. This took effect on 11 April when Morrison called the federal election and Parliament was prorogued.
On 1 January 2020 Bishop commenced her term as chancellor of the Australian National University. She is the first woman to be in this position.
In April 2024 Bishop was appointed United Nations special envoy for Myanmar.
Early life
Bishop was born on 17 July 1956 in Lobethal, South Australia. She is the third of four children born to Isabel Mary and Douglas Alan Bishop; she has two older sisters and a younger brother. Bishop has described her parents as "classic Menzies Liberals". Her father was a returned soldier and orchardist, while her mother's family were sheep and wheat farmers. Both her mother and grandfather William Bishop were active in local government, serving terms as mayor of the East Torrens District Council.Bishop grew up on an apple and cherry orchard in Basket Range. The year before she was born, it was burned to the ground in the Black Sunday bushfires. Bishop began her education at Basket Range Primary School and later attended St Peter's Collegiate Girls' School in Adelaide. She was the head prefect in her final year. Bishop went on to study law at the University of Adelaide. She worked two part-time jobs as a barmaid while at university—one at Football Park and one at a pub in Uraidla. She graduated with a Bachelor of Laws degree in 1978.
Professional career
After graduating law school, Bishop joined Wallmans, an Adelaide-based law firm, as its first female articled clerk. She left after less than a year, in part due to an incident where a senior partner asked her to perform waitressing duties. In 1982, aged 26, she became a partner in the firm of Mangan, Ey & Bishop. The following year, she married West Australian property developer Neil Gillon, and moved to Perth.On arriving in WA, Bishop joined Robinson Cox as a solicitor specialising in commercial litigation and was made a full partner in 1985. According to Kerry Stokes, "in the legal profession she was a very determined, reasoned person there's not been much written about what a good executive Julie was—responsible for administering and running a partnership, not just a lawyer".
In the late 1980s, Robinson Cox was hired by CSR Limited to defend against compensation claims brought by asbestos mining workers, who had contracted mesothelioma while working for Midalco, a subsidiary of CSR. Bishop was part of the team assigned to the case, which developed an argument that a company was not legally responsible for the actions of its subsidiaries. The Supreme Court of Western Australia eventually decided to pierce the corporate veil and hold CSR liable for Midalco's actions; the lead litigant died before the conclusion of the case, which lasted eight months. After becoming a public figure, Bishop was accused by opponents of acting immorally by involving herself in the case. She has said she conducted herself ethically and professionally, and per procedural advice given by barristers Robert French and David Malcolm.
As a legal advisor to the Western Australian Development Corporation, Bishop assisted in the incorporation of several new government enterprises, including Gold Corporation, LandCorp, and Eventscorp. Robinson Cox merged into the larger firm of Clayton Utz in 1992, and she was made managing partner of the firm's Perth office in 1994. In the same year, she took up an appointment as chair of the state government's Town Planning Appeal Tribunal, serving a three-year term. In 1996, Bishop attended Harvard Business School for eight weeks to complete the Advanced Management Programme for senior managers. She has credited one of her lecturers there, George C. Lodge, with inspiring her to enter public life. In 1997, she was elected to the senate of Murdoch University and appointed as a director of the Special Broadcasting Service.
Early political involvement
Bishop joined the Liberal Party in 1992. She has credited the WA Inc scandal with making her think she "did not ever want to see a Labor government elected again". She was chosen as the president of the Liberal party's CBD branch the year she joined the party, serving until 1997. In 1998, Senator Nick Minchin invited her to serve as an appointed delegate to the 1998 national constitutional convention. She was a "minimalist republican", and voted against the final model because she considered it too radical and unlikely to succeed at a referendum. At the convention, she became acquainted with Peter Costello, at the time serving as Treasurer under John Howard.Howard government
First years in parliament
Prior to the 1998 federal election, Bishop won Liberal preselection for the Division of Curtin, which takes in Perth's western suburbs. Her preselection bid received the support of Premier Richard Court, who had earmarked her as a future member of federal cabinet. The seat had been held for 17 years by Allan Rocher, who was a personal friend of Prime Minister John Howard but had left the Liberals in 1995 to sit as an independent. Howard did not want the Liberals to run a candidate against Rocher, and refused to campaign for Bishop; however, Peter Costello and Alexander Downer both supported her candidacy and Costello launched her campaign. At the election, she reclaimed the seat for the Liberals with a large swing in her favour.After the Liberal Party lost the 2001 state election in Western Australia, Bishop was suggested by multiple media sources as a possible replacement for Richard Court as state Liberal leader. It was later confirmed that Court favoured an arrangement where he and his deputy and factional rival, Colin Barnett, would resign their seats in the Legislative Assembly. Bishop would resign from federal Parliament and hand her seat to Barnett, and Court would hand the leadership of the WA Liberals to Bishop once she was safely in the state legislature by way of winning either Court or Barnett's old seats, both of which were within Curtin's boundaries and were comfortably safe for the Liberals. However, Bishop eventually rejected the deal.
Elevation to the ministry
Bishop was appointed Minister for Ageing by Prime Minister John Howard in 2003. She was later promoted to Minister for Education and Science and Minister for Women in 2006 and served in those positions until the defeat of the Howard government at the 2007 federal election.As education minister, Bishop's policies centred on the development of national education standards as well as performance-based pay for teachers. On 13 April 2007, the Australian State Governments jointly expressed opposition to Bishop's pay policy. In the 2007 budget, the Federal Government announced a $5 billion "endowment fund" for higher education, with the expressed goal of providing world-class tertiary institutions in Australia. Some of Bishop's public comments on education, including the remark that "the states have ideologically hijacked school syllabi and are wasting $180 million in unnecessary duplication", were criticised by teachers. An advance media kit for a 2006 speech claimed parts of the contemporary curriculum came "straight from Chairman Mao"; the remark was dropped from her speech.
Deputy Leader of the Opposition
Following the 2007 election, Bishop was elected Deputy Leader of the Liberal Party on 29 November 2007; Brendan Nelson was elected Leader. In a ballot of Liberal Party room members, Bishop comfortably won with 44 votes, one more than the combined total of her two competitors, Andrew Robb and Christopher Pyne.File:Julie Bishop and Quentin Bryce No.1.jpg|thumb|right|Bishop with Governor-General Quentin Bryce
On 22 September 2008, Bishop was promoted to the role of Shadow Treasurer by Nelson's successor as Opposition Leader, Malcolm Turnbull, making her the first woman to hold that portfolio. On 16 February 2009, however, she was moved from that position, with widespread media speculation that her colleagues were dissatisfied with her performance in the role. She was instead given the job of Shadow Minister for Foreign Affairs. After Tony Abbott was elected Liberal Leader following the 2009 leadership spill, Bishop retained her roles as Deputy Leader and Shadow Minister for Foreign Affairs.
In 2010, Bishop defended the suspected forgery of Australian passports by Mossad, saying that many countries practised the forging of passports for intelligence operations, including Australia. The Rudd government attacked Bishop over the statements, saying she had "broken a long-standing convention" of not speculating about intelligence practices. She later clarified her statement, saying, "I have no knowledge of any Australian authority forging any passports of any nation."
Following the Coalition's narrow loss in the 2010 federal election, Bishop was re-elected unanimously as Deputy Leader by her colleagues and retained the position of Shadow Minister for Foreign Affairs, while also being given the additional responsibility of Shadow Minister for Trade.