View full image

Speaker, 24 November 2011 to 9 October 2012
National Party of Australia, 1984 to 1987
Liberal Party of Australia, 1993 to 2011
Independent, 2011 to 2013

Announcing he would be an ‘independent Speaker in the Westminster tradition’,¹ Peter Slipper (b.1950) resigned from his party on being elected the 27th Speaker. He held the Speakership for less than a year while subject to intense scrutiny in a House led by a minority government.²

Slipper was born in Ipswich, Queensland. He attended Ipswich Grammar School and then the University of Queensland, graduating with degrees in arts and law. At university, he was a member of the Young Nationals, eventually becoming state president. Prior to entering politics, he worked as a lawyer, a businessman and a farmer. He married Lyn Hooper in 1981 and the couple had two children before divorcing in 2001. In 2006, he married Inge-Jane Hall.

Slipper was elected to the seat of Fisher for the National Party in 1984. He lost his seat in 1987 and, reportedly unable to regain National Party endorsement, joined the Liberal Party in 1989. He was returned as the Liberal Member for Fisher in 1993. He held several parliamentary roles, including Government Whip and Deputy Speaker. During this time, he was subject to investigations into misuse of parliamentary entitlements.

In 2011, following the sudden resignation of Speaker Harry Jenkins, the Labor Government made the unprecedented move of nominating Slipper, an Opposition member, as Speaker. The Opposition nominated nine Labor members in response; however, all declined. Slipper was elected to the Speakership and immediately resigned from the Liberal Party. With Slipper sitting as an Independent and Jenkins returning to the Government’s back bench, the minority government strengthened its position in the House.

As Speaker, Slipper immediately established his authority and his low tolerance for rowdiness, ejecting four Opposition members from the Chamber without warning in his first Question Time. He opted to wear the traditional Queen’s Counsel gown while in the Chair, and resumed the Speaker’s formal procession into the Chamber on a weekly basis.

However, Slipper’s Speakership was marred by investigations into abuses of travel entitlements and sexual harassment claims from a former staff member. Less than five months after his election, in April 2012 he temporarily stood aside, whilst denying all allegations. On 9 October, the Opposition moved to have him removed from office. Though the motion was defeated along party lines, Slipper resigned as Speaker later that day. He ran as an Independent at the 2013 federal election but lost his seat to Liberal candidate Mal Brough.

Ultimately, the proceedings brought against Slipper were withdrawn or dismissed, and he moved to Hobart, where he continues to work as a barrister. A highly religious man, he was ordained as a priest in 2008, and appointed Australian Bishop of the Brazilian Catholic Apostolic Church in 2018. Also in 2018, Slipper was appointed the honorary consul for Brazil in Tasmania.

Paul Newton
Sydney-based portraitist Paul Newton (b.1961) studied science at the University of Sydney before forging a career as an artist. Since graduating from the Julian Ashton Art School in 1987, Newton has produced portraits of various prominent figures in Australia and around the world. He has been an Archibald Prize finalist 12 times with portraits of many notable figures. He was also a finalist in the American Society of Portrait Artists 2001 International Portrait Competition at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, and has twice won the Portrait Society of America International Portrait Competition. In 2010 Newton was commissioned to paint 32 pictures for the interior of the Domus Australia Chapel in Rome, Italy. Among the works is a portrait of Australia’s first canonised saint, St Mary of the Cross, MacKillop, 2010, and a new depiction of Our Lady of the Southern Cross #2, 2011. An earlier painting of Our Lady of the Southern Cross was commissioned for World Youth Day and it hangs in St Mary’s Cathedral, Sydney.³

Peter Neil Slipper
by Paul Newton
2015
Oil on canvas
151.7 x 121.5 cm
Historic Memorials Collection, Parliament House Art Collections

References
1. P Slipper, ‘Parliamentary Office Holders’, House of Representatives, Debates, 24 November 2011, p. 13797.
2. Information in this biography has been taken from the following unless otherwise sourced: B Stevenson, ‘Slipper, Peter Neil (1950–)’, Australian Dictionary of Biography, National Centre of Biography, Australian National University, 2021, accessed 30 August 2021; S Hutchison and T Cowle, ‘Peter Slipper’s Brazilian church and its politico crowd’, The Sydney Morning Herald, 9 June 2020.
3. ‘Paul Newton: b. 1961’, National Portrait Gallery, 2018; ‘Paul Newton: Portrait Artist: about the artist’. Websites accessed 16 April 2021.