Bruce Baird

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Bruce George Baird (born 28 February 1942), Australian politician, was a Liberal member of the Australian House of Representatives from October 1998 to November 2007, representing the electorate of Cook, New South Wales. He was born in Sydney, and was educated at the University of Sydney and the University of Melbourne, holding a master's degree in business administration from the latter.

Baird was Assistant Trade Commissioner at the Australian Embassy in Bonn, Germany, 1972-76 and Trade Commissioner at Australian Consulate-General in New York 1977-80. He was Government Affairs Manager for Esso Australia 1980-84.

Baird was a member for the electorate of Northcott in the New South Wales Legislative Assembly 1984-95. He was Minister for Transport 1988-95, Minister for Sydney's Olympic Bid 1990-93 and Minister for Tourism and Roads 1993-95. He was also deputy leader of the Liberal Party from 1992 to 1994. He also held the positions of chairman of the National Rail Corporation, and was a board member of ABN Amro Hoare Govett, Tourism Training Australia and Tourism Education Services.^[1]

His children include Julia Baird, newspaper columnist with the Sydney Morning Herald, and Mike Baird, Liberal member for Manly in the NSW Legislative Assembly since the 2007 NSW state election.

In April 2007 he announced that he would retire at the next election. ^[2] The Liberal-endorsed candidate for the seat of Cook in the 2007 general election was Michael Towke, who was however, disendorsed following allegations of branch stacking.

[edit] Notes

Parliament of Australia
Preceded by Stephen Mutch	Member for Cook 1998–2007	Succeeded by Scott Morrison

Persondata
NAME	Baird, Bruce George
ALTERNATIVE NAMES
SHORT DESCRIPTION	Australian politician
DATE OF BIRTH	28 February 1942
PLACE OF BIRTH	Sydney, New South Wales, Australia
DATE OF DEATH
PLACE OF DEATH