Barrie Unsworth

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Barrie Unsworth
In office
4 July 1986 – 25 March 1988
Preceded by Neville Wran
Succeeded by Nick Greiner
Born 16 April 1934
Dubbo, New South Wales Flag of Australia Australia
Constituency Rockdale
Political party Australian Labor Party
Not to be confused with Barry Unsworth, British novelist.

Barrie Unsworth (Born: Dubbo, 16 April 1934), is an Australian politician. Barrie built his career in the New South Wales labour movement through the Electrical Trades Union. Barrie was Secretary of the Labor Council of New South Wales and a member of the New South Wales Legislative Council until the resignation of Premier Neville Wran in May 1986. Barrie was elected leader of the NSW Labor Party and contested a by-election in the seat of Rockdale a few months later in order to assume the Premiership. He narrowly won and was Premier until the Labor Party's landslide defeat in the 1988 elections.

Barrie's election loss was attributed to his strong stance on gun control.[citation needed] Barrie once prophetically said something along the lines of, "... it will take a massacre in Tasmania to have national gun control in Australia...", or something like that, this was said prior to the appalling Port Arthur Massacre in 1996 in Tasmania at which time gunman Martin Bryant cold-bloodedly murdered 35 people. Barrie was often associated with wearing cardigans, although interestingly there is no photo evidence of Barrie actually wearing a cardigan. It is an urban legend, although it did Barrie no discernible political harm, since he was widely known as "the killer in a cardie." On the other hand, this did not stop Barrie from being seen in some quarters as a drab and lacklustre personality and a rather anonymous politician, especially by comparison to his predecessor Neville Wran. Neville himself described Barrie as having had "a charisma bypass operation".


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Premiers of New South Wales
Donaldson | Cowper | Parker | Forster | Robertson | Martin | Parkes | Farnell | Stuart | Dibbs | Jennings | Reid | Lyne | See | Waddell | Carruthers | Wade | McGowen | Holman | Storey | Dooley | Fuller | Lang | Bavin | Stevens | Mair | McKell | McGirr | Cahill | Heffron | Renshaw | Askin | Lewis | Willis | Wran | Unsworth | Greiner | Fahey | Carr | Iemma


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