Christian Kerr, an Australian political commentator who wrote for the email news service Crikey before joining The Australian in 2008.
Prior to becoming a writer Kerr was a staffer to South Australian Liberal Senators Robert Hill, Amanda Vanstone and former South Australian Premier John Olsen.
In February 2000 Crikey founder and former editor Stephen Mayne introduced the new contributor Hillary Bray:
Are you sick of only hearing about Federal politics from political journalists. Would you rather get an insight from a government insider. Well, you've come to the right place. Hillary Bray is one of two sexes: male or female. He/she has definitely worked for the Howard government and may still do - we're not saying. This is his/her first column for Crikey.[1]
The pseudonym came from a James Bond book. Christian Kerr took up the role of Hillary Bray after his work as a political staffer led to an extended period of depression, alcoholism, drug abuse, and multifactorial political disillusionment. He continued to write about politics for Crikey under his own name.[2]
Since he outed himself as the person behind the pseudonym Hillary Bray, he has joined the Canberra Press Gallery and broadened the topics he covered in Crikey beyond just politics.
In 2008 he joined the journalistic staff of Rupert Murdoch's The Australian.