Bernie Ripoll

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Bernard Fernand Ripoll (born 6 January 1966) is an Australian politician. He has been a Labor member of the Australian House of Representatives since October 1998, representing the Division of Oxley, Queensland. The seat of Oxley, otherwise a safe Labor seat, was previously held by Pauline Hanson, who formed the One Nation Party after winning the seat in 1996. In the 1998 poll she decided to contest the seat of Blair possibly because the demographics of Blair better suited her re-election prospects.

Ripoll was born in Pézenas, France, and educated at the Queensland University of Technology. He was an aircraft electrician with the Royal Australian Air Force, an electrician and an organiser with the State Public Services Federation of Queensland (now known as the Queensland Public Sector Union) before entering politics.

Ripoll was appointed Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Infrastructure in October 2004.

He is a member of the national Right faction of the Australian Labor Party, affiliated to the Labor Forum also known as AWU faction.