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Speaker, 9 October 2012 to 5 August 2013
Australian Labor Party

Anna Burke (b.1966), 28th Speaker of the House, was respected as a capable and impartial Speaker, despite ruling over a hung parliament and a frequently fractious Chamber environment.¹

Burke grew up in Ashwood, Melbourne. She attended Presentation College before completing a Bachelor of Arts at Monash University. She joined the ALP’s Ashwood branch in 1987, eventually becoming branch president. While initially uninterested in student politics, she joined the Monash ALP executive in 1988 after encouragement from fellow student Bill Shorten.

Before entering politics, Burke worked for VicRoads, Victoria University, and the Finance Sector Union. In 1994, she completed a Master of Commerce at the University of Melbourne and married Stephen Burgess, with whom she had two children.

In 1996, Burke was invited to stand for preselection for the electorate of Chisholm. She was initially unsuccessful, but in 1998 was selected to contest the safe Liberal seat and went on to win the election with a swing of over four per cent. A popular local member, she was returned at the next five elections. When Burke had her first child in 1999, she became only the second woman (after Roslyn Kelly in 1983) to give birth while continuing to serve as a member of Parliament.²

Burke was elected Deputy Speaker in 2008 but did not recontest the role following the 2010 election. Instead, in an attempt to bolster its position on the floor, the now-minority Labor Government nominated Peter Slipper, an Opposition member. In 2011, during the election for the position of Speaker, she was one of nine Labor members nominated by the Opposition; she declined the nomination and was instead elected Deputy Speaker. Slipper became Speaker; however, five months later he stood aside pending investigations into allegations against him. Burke assumed the Chair for six months, until Slipper resigned on 9 October 2012. She was subsequently elected to the Speakership unopposed, only the second woman to become Speaker of the House.

With a hung parliament and a combative Opposition, the Chamber could be a trying environment. Nonetheless, Burke was well-regarded for her patience and impartiality. In her view, the Speaker’s role was as a representative of the institution of the Parliament, and ‘about respect for the rules’.³ Her Speakership ended with the Labor Party’s loss at the 2013 election, and she retired at the 2016 election.

Since her retirement, Burke has continued to be involved in causes she championed in Parliament, chairing various foundations and councils. In 2017, she was appointed a fulltime member of the Administrative Appeals Tribunal and was awarded a Monash University Fellowship. She was appointed an AO in 2019.

Jude Rae
Sydney-born artist Jude Rae (b.1956) is primarily known for her reflective still-life paintings, portraits and architectural interiors. She attended the Julian Ashton Art School as a secondary student in the 1970s before undertaking further studies in Art History at the University of Sydney. She then concentrated on developing her practice, enrolling at the College of Fine Arts in Sydney and later completing a Masters Degree in Visual Art at Canterbury University in Christchurch, New Zealand. Of great influence for Rae during these early years was the realist work of her father and fellow painter David Rae. In 1987, she held her first solo exhibition and since then has exhibited work throughout Australia, New Zealand, Germany, and the USA. She has been awarded residencies in France, Italy, and New Zealand and has taught art at a tertiary level at Auckland University, the Australian National University, and the National Art School (Sydney). She won the Portia Geach Memorial Award for portraiture by women artists in 2005 and in 2008 and was a highly commended finalist in the 2019 Archibald Prize.⁴

Anne Elizabeth Burke
by Jude Rae
2015
Oil on linen
121.8 x 101.5 cm
Historic Memorials Collection, Parliament House Art Collections

References
1. Information in this biography has been taken from the following: S Marchant, ‘Burke, Anna Elizabeth (1966–)’, Australian Dictionary of Biography, National Centre of Biography, Australian National University, 2021; P Barrett, ‘Order in the House’, Monash University Lens, 6 September 2018; S Hearn, ‘Being Anna Burke: the former speaker opens up’, The Sydney Morning Herald, 10 July 2015; A Crabb, ‘Every woman needs a wife’, Good Weekend Magazine (The Sydney Morning Herald), 27 September 2014, p. 60. Websites accessed 30 August 2021.
2. R Russell, ‘Kelly, Roslyn Joan (Ros) (1948–)’, Australian Women’s Register, University of Melbourne and National Foundation for Australian Women, created 27 February 2004 and last modified 23 October 2015, accessed 16 September 2021.
3. Barrett, op cit.
4. ‘Jude Rae: Biography’; ‘The art that made me: Jude Rae’, Art Gallery of NSW. Websites accessed 15 April 2021.