Brendan Smyth (politician)

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This article refers to the Australian politician. For the priest, see Brendan Smyth (priest).

Brendan Smyth (born July 1959) is a Liberal Party Australian politician. From 2002 to 2006 he was the Leader of the Opposition in the Australian Capital Territory. He retains his shadow previous portfolios of Health, Ageing, Business and Tourism at present. He represents the electorate of Brindabella.

Smyth was born in Sydney, but moved to Canberra in May 1969. He worked at the National Library of Australia until 1995, when he ran in a by-election in the federal House of Representatives seat of Canberra, which had been caused by the departure amidst scandal of Cabinet minister Ros Kelly. Although the seat was widely considered to be safe for Kelly's Australian Labor Party, Smyth swept to victory with a massive swing in his favour. Following a redistribution of electoral boundaries, Smyth contested the new federal House of Representatives seat of Namadgi at the Australian federal election, 1996 but was defeated by Annette Ellis.^[1] He was one of the only conservative losses to Labor during the Landslide which brought the Howard Government to power in 1996. He subsequently shifted to territory politics, winning election to the Legislative Assembly in 1998 representing the Tuggeranong based multimember electorate of Brindabella.^[2]

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[edit] External links

• Canberra Liberals People: Brendan Smyth

Preceded by Gary Humphries	Opposition Leader of the Australian Capital Territory 2002–2006	Succeeded by Bill Stefaniak
Parliament of Australia
Preceded by Ros Kelly	Member for Canberra 1995–1996	Succeeded by Bob McMullan