Bruce George Baird (born 28 February 1942), is an Australian former politician whose career included a stint as Deputy Leader of the New South Wales Liberal Party and as a Member of the Australian House of Representatives for Cook.
Early life
Baird grew up in Cronulla, where his father owned the local shoe store. He was educated at Winston College, Cronulla Public School and Sutherland Intermediate High School, before studying for a Bachelor of Arts at University of Sydney. He was Government Affairs Manager for Esso Australia 1980–1984.
Political career
Baird was elected as member for the electorate of Northcott in the New South Wales Legislative Assembly in 1984. He was appointed as Shadow Minister for Transport and Finance in May 1986. Following the election of the Greiner Government in 1988, he was appointed as Minister for Transport. He was also deputy leader of the Liberal Party from 1992 to 1994 and served as Minister for Tourism from 1992 to 1993 and as Minister for Roads from 1993 to 1995. Baird along with fellow Liberal MPs Petro Georgiou, Russell Broadbent and Judi Moylan opposed mandatory detention of asylum seekers.
Despite being a former deputy leader of the NSW Liberal Party, Baird never served as a minister during his time in Federal Parliament. Baird had been overlooked for ministerial preferment by Prime Minister John Howard because he was a supporter of deputy Liberal leader and Howard's heir apparent Peter Costello.
Sensing that he would not be promoted by Howard, Baird in 2004 sought to become Speaker but was unsuccessful with David Hawker chosen as the Government's candidate for Speaker instead.
In April 2007, he announced that he would retire at the next election. A fierce battle over his successor ensued; Michael Towke was initially preselected as the Liberal candidate 86 votes to 8 but was the target of several negative news reports, before being replaced with future Prime Minister Scott Morrison, who went on to win the seat.
After politics
Baird was appointed Chairman of the Tourism and Transport Forum, a peak industry lobby group, in 2008. In the same year, he was also appointed as chair of the Refugee Resettlement Advisory Council, which advises the Australian government on resettling refugees in Australia.
Following the financial collapse of a number of private providers of education to international students, in 2009 Baird agreed to head up a review into international education in Australia. Baird delivered the report in a joint press conference in March 2010. Included in his recommendations were tighter regulation including stronger entry requirements, improved risk assessment, and where breaches occur, tougher penalties.
In 2010 on Australia Day, he was appointed a Member of the Order of Australia for service to the Parliament of Australia, and to the community of New South Wales through a range of business, tourism and welfare organisations. In August 2017, Business Events Sydney announced the appointment of Baird as their new chairman, commencing from 1 September 2017.
Personal life
Bruce and Judy Baird's children are Steve Baird, chief executive officer International Justice Mission Australia; Julia Baird, columnist with the Sydney Morning Herald and host of the ABC News program The Drum; and Mike Baird, now chief executive officer of HammondCare, and previously the Premier of New South Wales from 2014 to 2017.
He is a patron of the Asylum Seekers Centre, a not-for-profit that provides personal and practical support to people seeking asylum in Australia.
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