John Brumby
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-->John Mansfield Brumby (born 21 April 1953), Australian politician, is a senior minister in the government of the state of Victoria.Brumby was born in Melbourne and educated at Melbourne Grammar School and Melbourne University, where he graduated in commerce in 1974, and at the State College of Victoria, where he completed a Diploma of Education in 1975. He was a teacher at Eaglehawk High School, near Bendigo in central Victoria, from 1976 to 1979. From 1979 to 1983 he was an employee of the Victorian Teachers Union. He was also active in the Australian Labor Party.
In 1983 Brumby was elected to the Australian House of Representatives for the seat of Bendigo, which he held until his defeat in 1990. A member of the Labor Unity faction, he was a strong supporter of Prime Minister Bob Hawke and an opponent of the Socialist Left faction, which has its stronghold in the Victorian branch of the Labor Party.
Brumby then worked as a consultant before being appointed Chief of Staff to the federal Minister for Resources and Tourism, Allan Griffiths with responsibility for the development of policy in areas such as energy, petroleum, minerals and tourism. He held this position until February 1993, when he was elected to the Victorian Legislative Council at a by-election for the seat of Doutta Galla Province in Melbourne's western suburbs.
The Victorian Labor government of Joan Kirner had been heavily defeated at the October 1992 state elections by the Liberal Party under Jeff Kennett. Kirner resigned as Leader and was succeeded by Jim Kennan, but he decided to quit politics in June 1993. Labor Unity then decided to bring in Brumby as state party leader, since he had had no connection with the former Labor government and could make a fresh start after Labor's defeat in 1992. He resigned from the Council and was elected to the Victorian Legislative Assembly at a by-election for Kennan's seat of Broadmeadows.
From 1993 to 1996 Brumby worked to restore Labor's fortunes in Victoria, but the landslide defeat of the federal Labor government in March 1996 prompted Kennett to call an early state election three weeks later, at which Labor made a net gain of only two seats. This defeat weakened Brumby's position as Leader, and factional intrigues in the party increased over the next three years. Eventually Brumby's faction decided that he should be replaced before the election due in 2000, and he stepped down as Leader of the Opposition in March 1999, being replaced by his friend and ally Steve Bracks.
When Bracks unexpectedly won the early state election called by Kennett in September 1999, Brumby was appointed Minister for Finance, Assistant Treasurer and Minister for State and Regional Development, forming part of the leadership group of senior ministers with Bracks, Deputy Premier John Thwaites and Attorney-General Rob Hulls. Fulfilling a campaign promise, Bracks became Treasurer as well as Premier, but it was generally understood that Brumby was carrying most of the workload of the Treasury portfolio. In May 2000 Bracks handed the Treasury portfolio over to Brumby.
Since 2000 Brumby has presided over a period of increasing growth and prosperity in Victoria, and his economic management was given some of the credit, along with the personal popularity of Bracks, for Labor's landslide re-election in 2002. Victoria's budget supluses have been fuelled in part by revenues from the federal government's goods and services tax, which Labor opposed but which has greatly improved the financial position of the states.
During 2004 Brumby was criticised for sharp increases in the rate of land tax in Victoria, which threatened the viability of many small businesses. Land tax rates were cut in the 2005 state budget. Brumby was also held responsible for the government's decision to renege on a promise not to impose a toll on the new Scoresby Freeway in eastern Melbourne. Both of these decisions flowed from the Bracks government's determination not to repeat the mistakes of the John Cain and Joan Kirner governments, whose fiscal difficulties led to the Labor defeat of 1992.
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