Brian Greig
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Brian Andrew Greig (born 22 February 1966), Australian politician, was an Australian Democrats member of the Australian Senate from 1999 to 2005, representing the state of Western Australia.
Greig was born in Fremantle, but his family moved to the small village of Lancelin at the age of four. He went to primary school there, but spent his secondary education as a boarder at Hale School in Perth. He studied arts at Murdoch University, where he began to be involved in student politics.
While in university, Greig campaigned on the issue of student fees, and in 1986, he helped re-establish the National Union of Students. In the same year, he met his partner, with whom he still lives. He began to get involved in gay rights activism during the 1990s, and helped establish the Australian Council for Lesbian and Gay Rights [1] which is now defunct.
During the 1990s, Greig worked for several Australian Labor Party politicians, including Senator Peter Cook, but ultimately became disillusioned with Labor, joining the Democrats. Between 1995 and 1999, he was a councillor in the West Australian town of Vincent.
At the October 1998 federal election, Greig was elected to the Senate, having the distinction of being the first Federal parliamentarian to declare his homosexuality in his maiden parliamentary speech. Though he campaigned strongly on issues of social justice, he remained little-known until 2002. Former leader Meg Lees had been attempting to oust her successor, and with the assistance of three other senators - Deputy Leader Aden Ridgeway, Andrew Murray and John Cherry, succeeded in forcing leader Natasha Stott Despoja to resign. Ridgeway was expected to succeed her, but Greig launched a last-minute nomination against him, and won a surprise victory. He led the party for several months, until he lost a second leadership bout, this time with Andrew Bartlett.
In the Senate, Greig was responsible for introducing three pieces of legislation - a bill to outlaw genocide in Australia, a bill to eliminate discrimination against gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender and intersex people and a bill to promote government use of open source software above all others. However, all three were unsuccessful, as they were blocked by the Liberal-National government.
Greig stood for re-election at the 2004 election, but lost his seat to Rachel Siewert of the Australian Greens. His term expired 30 June 2005.
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| Preceded by Natasha Stott Despoja |
Leader of the Australian Democrats 2002 |
Succeeded by Andrew Bartlett |
Categories: 1966 births | Australian Democrats politicians | Gay politicians | LGBT rights activists | Living people | Local political office-holders in Western Australia | Members of the Australian Senate for Western Australia | People from Fremantle | Western Australian politicians | LGBT people from Australia
