Cory Bernardi

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Cory Bernardi (born 6 November 1969, Adelaide) is an Australian politician. Following the resignation of Robert Hill from the Australian Senate in March 2006 to become Ambassador to the United Nations, Bernardi was chosen by the Parliament of South Australia to fill the vacancy. His senate term officially commenced on 4 May 2006 and ends on 30 June 2008.[1]

Bernardi represented Australia in the sport of rowing in 1988 and 1989. In doing so at the age of 18, he is the youngest person to represent Australia in the open heavyweight men's division of rowing. In various international competitions, Bernardi won the Henley Royal Regatta in England, rowing in an eight-man crew. He also competed at the World Rowing Championships in Bled (then in Yugoslavia, now in Slovenia), as part of the coxless four.

A former publican and investment fund manager, Bernardi was President of the South Australian Division of the Liberal Party of Australia from 1998 to 2000 and was the Party's Federal Vice-President from 2005 until late 2006 when he voluntarily resigned to avoid any potential conflict of interest as a Senator. He is the youngest person to ever hold these positions within the Liberal Party (South Australia and National)

On February 17 2007, Bernardi was pre-selected by the State Council of the South Australian Liberal Party to be the number one candidate on the South Australian Liberal Senate ticket for the Federal election to be held in late 2007. He again was pre-selected ahead of Simon Birmingham who was the second candidate on the Liberal ticket, while Senator Grant Chapman came in third.

Bernardi is regarded as being a leading member of the conservative faction or right wing of the Liberal Party.

On 21 April 2007 Bernardi published an essay saying questioning whether global warming was caused by human activities.[2]. Environment Minister Malcolm Turnbull and other Liberal parliamentarians promptly distanced themselves from his views but there were numerous similarities between Bernardi's essay and government policy released a short time later.[3]

In January 2008, the Adelaide Advertiser reported that Bernardi had written to South Australian politicians encouraging them to oppose a bill allowing the therapeutic cloning of human embryos. His letter and a later opinion piece argued that advances in medical technology had made human cloning for stem cell research redundant. He further suggested that the federal legislation allowing this research should be reviewed. It is expected that his comments will result in the introduction of a private member's bill to reverse the current Federal stem cell legislation.

On Wednesday 19 March 2008 Senator Bernardi, the current Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Families was named in a story published in The Australian Newspaper [4] as having being linked to a scheme that sold financial advice on how divorcees could hide money from their former spouses.

On Thursday 20 March 2008, Bernardi introduced a motion calling for a Senate inquiry into swearing on television and the effectiveness of the Code of Practice after a television show was broadcast at 8.30pm containing the 'F-word' eighty times in 40 minutes. The Senate supported the motion and the inquiry is scheduled to report to the Senate by June 9, 2008.

Bernardi, on May, 2008, initiated a Senate inquiry into swearing about Ramsay's programs, with 50 public submissions. And the overwhelming majority ruled in favor of tighter regulation and called for the Nine television network, to censor Gordon Ramsay. But the Council for Civil Liberties, New South Wales favored Ramsey: "This inquiry is yet another attempt to restrict the freedom of expression of ordinary Australians. Not everyone is offended by coarse language," the council said in its submission. Adelaide Australia's Catholic church, on May, 2008, demanded that Gordon Ramsay's reality television shows be either taken off air or shown at a later time, amid Australia's parliament inquiry into swearing on television, due to Ramsay's antics in his Kitchen Nightmares and Hell's Kitchen. Ramsay used a four-letter expletive 80 times, and also shouted at a chef: "You French pig."[5][6]

[edit] The Money Tree

Senator Bernardi wrote a book entitled 'The Money Tree' during his time as a financial planner, of which he has since reproduced a second edition in his capacity as a Senator. The newer version of the book is called "The Money Tree: Securing Your Child's Financial Future". The second version has been simplified, shortened and illustrated to appeal to younger children. There have been in excess of 15,000 copies of The Money Tree printed and distributed free to Australian families and more than 100,000 downloads from the website MoneyTreeBook.com

It received considerable attention after appearing in an article by Mark Kenny in the Adelaide Advertiser on the 20th of February, 2007.

[edit] External links

[edit] References

  1. ^ Parliament of Australia (2006-05-12). Biography for BERNARDI, Cory. Parlinfo Web. Retrieved on 2006-05-14.
  2. ^ Cool Heads Needed on Global Warming. Retrieved on 2007-04-23.
  3. ^ Libs snub Bernardi climate call. The Advertiser (2007-04-23). Retrieved on 2007-04-23.
  4. ^ Cash-hiding plan linked to Lib MP. Retrieved on 2008-03-18.
  5. ^ Reuters, Strewth! Aussie Catholics call foul on TV chef
  6. ^ news.com.au, Adelaide Catholic diocese wants Gordon Ramsay off air