Brendon Grylls
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Brendon Grylls, Australian Politician, is the Member for Merredin in the Legislative Assembly and the current Leader of The National Party in Western Australia.
His political career began in November 2001 when he contested and won a state by-election following the retirement of former Nationals Leader Hendy Cowan to become the Member for Merredin.
Since then Grylls has evolved into one of the most active politicians in Parliament taking on key portfolios as The Nationals WA spokesperson for small business, tourism, environment, salinty and water resources and Shadow Minister for Environment and the Wheatbelt in the Liberal-National Coalition prior to the 2005 State election.
Perhaps one of Grylls' most significant contributions to the West Australian State Parliament and indeed The Nationals WA came in June 2005 when Grylls challenged then Leader Max Trenorden to become the new leader of The Nationals WA.
Following his promotion to Leader, Grylls then set about what he described as "A new system for WA that will give political leverage to the regions". One of the first steps in this was to pull out of the long-held tradition of the Liberal-National Coalition agreement. Since then he has sought to lead The Nationals as a stand-alone independent party that seeks to gain the balance of power in the 2009 State election and become the "third party".
