Julie Bishop

Encyclopedia

Julie Isabel Bishop (b. Lobethal, Australia, July 17, 1956) is an Australian politician. She was her country’s Foreign Minister in the government of Tony Abbott, having taken office on September 18, 2013, until 2018.

Bishop is the deputy leader of the Liberal Party of Australia, as well as being the first woman to hold this position and the third woman in Australia’s history to hold the title of deputy leader of the opposition.

She has been a member of the Australian House of Representatives since 1998, representing the Curtin district in Western Australia. She was a minister in the Howard government until the defeat of the Liberal-National Coalition in the 2007 federal election. Bishop is a Republican.

Biography

Julie Bishop was born in Lobethal, South Australia, and was educated at St Peter’s Collegiat Girls’ School and the University of Adelaide. She graduated from the latter with a law degree in 1978, and then practiced law at the Adelaide law firm of Mangan, Ey & Bishop, where she was a partner. In 1983 Bishop married Neil Gillio; however, they divorced five years later. She then had a relationship with Liberal state congressman and senator Ross Lightfoot. She is currently in a relationship with Peter Nattrass, the former mayor of Perth.
After marriage, Bishop moved to Perth, where she practiced law as a commercial litigation lawyer at Robinson Cox (now Clayton Utz). She became a partner at Clayton Utz in 1985, and a manager in the Perth office in 1994. In 1996 she entered Harvard Business School in Boston and completed the eight-week advanced program for managers.

Bishop is a former director of the Western Australian Town Planning Appeal Tribunal, a former senate member of Murdoch University, a former director of the Special Broadcasting Service and a former director and fellow of the Australian Institute of Management. She has also served on the Board of Directors of the Lions Ear and Hearing Institute.

At Congress

In 1998, Bishop was pre-selected by the Liberal Party of Australia to contest the seat of Curtin, Western Australia, and in that year’s federal election won the seat from Allan Rocher, who was a former member of the party and had represented Curtin since 1981.
After the defeat of the Liberals in the 2001 state elections, Bishop was put forward as a possible candidate to lead the state opposition. Initially, Richard Court, the Liberal candidate in the 2001 election, announced that he would continue his political work at the helm of the opposition; however, behind the scenes he was trying to close a deal whereby Bishop would have passed the federal seat to Court’s internal opponent, Colin Barnett, would have entered parliament through a special election with either Court’s or Barnett’s seats and thus taken Court’s place as the Liberal leader in the state. The deal never went through, but when Bishop rejected it, he indicated that it was not an odd arrangement, but rather “innovative and different.” Court was forced out of politics and Barnett became the new opposition leader in the state.

Minister in the Howard government

Bishop was appointed Minister for Seniors in 2003. On January 24, 2006, she was promoted to Minister for Education and Science and Assistant Minister for Women’s Affairs, positions she held until the Coalition’s defeat at the November 24, 2007 federal election.
Bishop’s education policies focused on the development of national education standards as well as performance-based pay for teachers. On April 13, 2007, Australian state governments came out in opposition to Bishop’s policies, especially those related to performance-related pay. In the 2007 budget, the federal government announced a $5 billion fund for higher education, with the specific aim of providing world-class tertiary education institutions in Australia.

Some of Bishop’s comments, such as one that said “states have ideologically hijacked school programs and are wasting $180 million on unnecessary duplication,” have been criticized by teachers. A preview of a recent speech said that parts of the current curriculum came “straight out of Commander Mao”; however, the comment was dropped at the end.

Shadow Minister and Deputy Leader of the Liberal Party

Following the Coalition’s defeat in the 2007 election, Bishop was appointed deputy leader of the Liberal Party under Brendan Nelson on November 29, 2007. In a ballot of party members, Bishop won with 44 of the votes, one more than the combined total of her competitors: Andrew Robb (25) and Christopher Pyne (18).
On September 22, Bishop was offered the role of Shadow Treasurer by Opposition Leader Malcolm Turnbull, making her the first woman from either major party to hold this position at the federal level. On February 16, 2009, she resigned her position due to internal disapproval over her performance in the Liberal Party. Bishop moved to Foreign Affairs while retaining her position as Deputy Leader; the Treasury position was taken by Joe Hockey. On December 1, 2009, Tony Abbott was elected as party leader and Bishop retained her position as second-in-command.

In 2010, Bishop defended the alleged forgery of Australian passports by the Mossad, stating that many countries forged passports to conduct intelligence operations, including Australia. The government attacked Bishop for these comments, saying he had “broken a long-standing practice” of not speculating about intelligence activities. He later clarified his comment by saying “I am not aware of any Australian authority having forged passports of any nation.”



Bishop retained the role as unopposed deputy leader after the Coalition’s close defeat in the 2010 federal election, and retained his positions as Shadow Foreign Minister and Shadow Trade Minister.

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