Brett Raguse

Brett Blair Raguse (born 24 March 1960) is an Australian politician. He was an Australian Labor Party member of the Australian House of Representatives from November 2007 until July 2010, representing the electorate of Forde.

Raguse was born in Queensland, and began his career as an apprentice in the printing industry. He later studied education at Griffith University, and worked as a teacher, subsequently rising to become director of the Morningside and Ithaca TAFE campuses. He returned to the private sector for a period, operating a small business and working for private education provider Quantm College. He briefly returned to the newspaper industry before entering politics, establishing the Riverland News and publishing the Beaudesert Shire News. He later worked as a ministerial adviser for state ministers Desley Boyle and John Mickel and as a staffer for backbencher Barbara Stone. Raguse was the Labor candidate for the safe National seat of Beaudesert at the 2006 state election, losing to incumbent MP Kev Lingard.^[1]

Raguse subsequently gained Labor preselection to contest the normally safe Liberal seat of Forde at the 2007 federal election. It had been held by retiring Liberal Kay Elson on a margin of more than 11%, but began to be seen as potentially winnable during the campaign as Labor continued to poll well in the state, with the betting odds having more than halved by September.^[2] He won an unexpected 14% swing on election day, easily defeating new Liberal candidate Wendy Creighton in what was generally viewed as one of the main upset results of the election.^[3][4] He lost his seat in the 2010 federal election to the LNP candidate Bert Van Manen.

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