Kevin Andrews (politician)

Early life and education

Andrews was born on 9 November 1955 in Sale, Victoria. He was educated at the Rosedale Primary School, St Patrick's College, Sale and the University of Melbourne, where he lived at Newman College and graduated with a Bachelor of Laws in 1979 and a Bachelor of Arts in 1980. At university, he was President of the Newman College Students' Club and the National Association of Australian University Colleges. He later completed a Master of Laws degree at Monash University in 1986.

Legal practice

After graduation, he worked for the Law Institute of Victoria from 1980 to 1983, as a research solicitor and co-ordinator of Continuing Legal Education. From 1983 to 1985, he served as associate to Sir James Gobbo, Justice of the Supreme Court of Victoria, and subsequently the Governor of Victoria. He practised as a barrister from 1985 until his election to Parliament in 1991.

While practising law he specialised in health law and bioethics and was involved with the St Vincent's Bioethics Centre, the Mercy Hospital for Women, the Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre and the Lincoln School of Health Sciences. He was also a board member of Caritas Christi Hospice.

Political career 1991-2007 in opposition and Government

Andrews was elected to the House of Representatives for the Liberal Party of Australia at the 1991 Menzies by-election in Victoria. Andrews does not live in his electorate but rather in neighbouring Jagajaga.

As a backbencher, Andrews presented a private member's bill, the Euthanasia Laws Bill 1996, which was passed in 1997 and overrode the Northern Territory's legislation, the Rights of the Terminally Ill Act 1995, that legalised euthanasia in the Territory.

Andrews called for an end to trials of the RU-486 drug and voted against a bill that took away the Health Minister's power to veto applications to allow the drug to be used.

In taking a stance against stem cell research in 2002, he stated that it was the "first time" that "human beings can be treated as a commodity". He also took a stance against stem cell research during a debate in 2006, which resulted in the overturning of a previous ban on the research.

After the Coalition's third victory in 2001, Andrews was brought into the outer ministry as Minister for Ageing, a portfolio in which he served from 26 November 2001 to 7 October 2003. He was subsequently appointed to Cabinet as the Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations and was responsible for introducing the Howard Government's major changes to industrial relations law in 2005, commonly known as WorkChoices. In a reshuffle in early 2007, Andrews was made Minister for Immigration and Citizenship, a position which he held until the swearing-in of the First Rudd Ministry on 3 December 2007, following the defeat of the Howard Government in the 2007 election.

Political career 2007-2015 in opposition and Government

During 2008 and 2009 he served as Chairman of the Coalition's Policy Review Committee, reviewing and developing the Opposition's policies, until he was promoted to the Shadow Cabinet (to the position of Shadow Minister for Families, Housing and Human Services) in December 2009 by the newly elected Opposition Leader, Tony Abbott. He was also appointed Deputy Chairman of the Coalition Policy Development Committee.

In November 2009, Andrews declared his candidacy against Malcolm Turnbull in a vote for a leadership spill, in opposition to Turnbull's support for the government's emissions trading scheme. He had declared himself a climate change sceptic, saying that 'the jury is still out' on human contributions to global warming. The party room however, voted down having a leadership spill 41 votes to 35 and the Andrews' challenge did not eventuate. After continued leadership speculation, a second party room meeting was held, at which point the leadership was declared vacant. Tony Abbott, Joe Hockey, and Malcolm Turnbull all stood for the leadership, and Tony Abbott was ultimately successful. Following his election as Leader, Abbott promoted Andrews to the Shadow Cabinet as Minister for Families, Housing and Human Services.

In the 2010 federal election, Andrews was re-elected to the seat of Menzies with a 2.70% swing against the Labor Party.

On 14 September 2015, after Deputy Leader Julie Bishop announced she would support Malcolm Turnbull in challenge against Prime Minister Tony Abbott for the leadership of the Liberal Party, Andrews announced he supported Abbott and would stand for deputy leadership against Bishop. Julie Bishop retained the position of Deputy Leader with 70 votes to Andrews' 30.

Andrews was a member of the Lyons Forum, a socially conservative Christian group within the Coalition that was disbanded in the mid 1990s. He served as the Forum Secretary and is credited with suggesting the name for the group.

Haneef affair

As Minister for Immigration and Citizenship, Andrews attracted controversy after he revoked on character grounds the visa of Dr Mohamed Haneef, who had been granted bail on charges of aiding terrorists. This was criticised as a move to keep Haneef in detention; upon posting bail, Haneef would have been transferred from Brisbane's Wolston Correctional Centre to Sydney's Villawood Detention Centre. Andrews defended his actions as being in accordance with the Migration Act and Haneef's lawyers challenged his interpretation of the Act in the Federal Court.

Following the Director of Public Prosecutions dropping all charges against Haneef, Andrews refused calls to reinstate Haneef's visa, stating that his personal evidence was still valid. Andrews' refusal resulted in calls for a public inquiry into the incident by then Queensland Premier Peter Beattie.

Andrews' justification of his decision, that he had a reasonable suspicion that Haneef had associated with suspected terrorists and therefore failed the test of good character that a person must pass to keep a visa, was rejected in the Federal Court, and the revocation of Haneef's visa was overturned. However, in November, e-mails released under the Freedom of Information Act appeared to indicate that Andrews' office had a plan to revoke the visa before the case went to court, in the case that bail was granted.

On 23 December 2008, a government-ordered inquiry report was released. Mr Clarke, the head of the judicial inquiry, determined Mr Andrews did not act with an improper motive.[1]

Publications record

Following Andrews' criticism of irregularities discovered in the CV of an Indian doctor working on the Gold Coast, various media organisations carried reports disputing Andrews' claim on parliamentary and ministerial websites to have co-authored three books, having contributed only a chapter to each. Andrews argued in his own defence that

"In common, everyday parlance, as one of the authors (of a chapter) I presumed you called yourself a co-author – that's all I've simply done. I wasn't aware, to be frank, of some publishing convention that someone's referred to (that suggests otherwise). If that offends people's sensibilities well so be it, basically."

2007 African immigration controversy

In October 2007, Andrews' decision to cut Australia's refugee intake from African nations was described by some critics as racist and a use of the race card to appeal to "racist" voters before the 2007 Australian federal election. Andrews defended the decision, saying: "Some groups don't seem to be settling and adjusting into the Australian way of life as quickly as we would hope."

The Queensland Labor Premier, Anna Bligh, described Andrews' criticism of Sudanese as "disturbing". She said: "It has been a long time since I have heard such a pure form of racism out of the mouth of any Australian politician." Labor politician Tony Burke described Andrews' decision as "incompetent". However, Andrews' actions were applauded by then former One Nation politician, Pauline Hanson. Members of the Australian Sudanese community viewed Andrews as responsible for creating a racial tension leading to anti-African sentiment in the community and racially based attacks on Sudanese migrants in Australia. Andrews stated in 2011 he did not regret raising the issue.

Use of Parliamentary entitlements

In February 2016, Andrews used $1,855 in taxpayer funds as part of approved "study allowance" to attend a "prayer breakfast" , address the Heritage Foundation, a right-wing think tank, and have a series of policy discussion meetings in Washington DC and in the process missed the first week of Parliament, which had been approved by the party Whip.

Causes and views

Andrews has been associated with or given speeches to many organisations over the years. He is an advisor to the Board of Life Decisions International (LDI), a (non-denominational) Christian pro-life group that is primarily concerned with opposing abortion and the agenda of the Planned Parenthood organisation. LDI promotes chastity, boycotts corporations that fund Planned Parenthood, such as GlaxoSmithKline, Time Warner and Disney, and names individual celebrities who support abortion, euthanasia or embryonic stem cell experimentation. Andrews has described his role with LDI as an "honorary patronage". In 2007, the Sydney Morning Herald reported that Andrews did not declare his wife's patronage of Life Decisions International's Board of Advisors on his entry in the Parliamentary Register of Pecuniary Interests.

On 9 April 2003, Andrews made a speech to the Endeavour Forum, a conservative Christian group founded to counter the feminist movement which opposes abortion, equal opportunity and affirmative action. Andrews has also given several speeches over the years at the Family Council of Victoria, an organisation opposed to homosexuality, sex-education, and anti-homophobia policies in public schools, which it claims is "pro-homosexual indoctrination" of students.

Andrews supports immigration as a way to slow population ageing in Australia. During an address to the Committee for the Economic Development of Australia, he said that "The level of net overseas migration is important as net inflows of migrants to Australia reduce the rate of population ageing because migrants are younger on average than the resident population. Just under 70% of the migrant intake are in the 15–44 age cohort, compared to 43% of the Australian population as a whole. Just 10% of the migrant intake are 45 or over, compared with 38% of the Australian population."

In 2011, as a Liberal Shadow Cabinet frontbencher, Andrews published a critique of the Greens' policy agenda for Quadrant Magazine in which he wrote that the Australian Greens' "objective involves a radical transformation of the culture that underpins Western civilisation" and that their agenda would threaten the "Judeo-Christian/Enlightenment synthesis that upholds the individual" as well as "the economic system that has resulted in the creation of wealth and prosperity for the most people in human history."

Andrews supported the move to make Australia a republic at the Australian Constitutional Convention 1998.

Andrews was an Adjunct Lecturer in Politics and in Marriage Education in the John Paul II Institute for Marriage and Family in Melbourne.