Brian Greig

Brian Andrew Greig (born February 22, Australian politician, has been an Australian Democrats member of the Australian Senate since July 1999, representing the state of Western Australia.

Greig was born in Fremantle, but his family moved to the small village of Lancelin at the age of four. He went to primary school there, but spent his secondary education in a Perth boarding school. He studied arts at Murdoch University, where he began to be involved in student politics.

While in university, Greig campaigned on the issue of student fees, and in 1986, he helped re-establish the National Union of Students. In the same year, he met his partner, who he still lives with. He began to get involved in gay rights activism during the 1990s, and helped establish the Australian Council for Lesbian and Gay Rights.

During the 1990s, Greig worked for several Australian Labor Party politicians, including Senator Peter Cook, but ultimately became disillusioned with Labor, joining the Democrats. Between 1995 and 1999, he was a councillor in the West Australian town of Vincent.

At the October 1998 federal election, Greig was elected to the Senate. Though he campaigned strongly on issues of social justice, he remained little-known until 2002. Former leader Meg Lees had been attempting to oust her successor, and with the assistance of three other senators - Deputy Leader Aden Ridgeway, Andrew Murray and John Cherry, succeeded in forcing leader Natasha Stott Despoja to resign. Ridgeway was expected to succeed her, but Greig launched a last-minute nomination against him, and won a surprise victory. He led the party for several months, until he lost a second leadership bout, this time with Andrew Bartlett.

In the Senate, Greig was responsible for introducing three pieces of legislation - a bill to outlaw genocide in Australia, a bill to eliminate discrimination against gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender and intersex people and a bill to promote government use of open-source software above all others. However, all three were unsuccessful, as they were blocked by the Liberal Party of Australia government.

Greig stood for re-election at the 2004 election, but lost his seat to Rachel Siewert of the Australian Greens. His term will expire on 30 June 2005.

External link

• Official site (http://www.briangreig.democrats.org.au/)