Paul Bongiorno

Personal life

Bongiorno grew up in Ballarat, Victoria, and was educated by the Christian Brothers at St Patrick’s College and Drummond Street in Ballarat. He told ABC radio in 2015: "I was inspired by what I heard and by the lives of men — both priests and brothers — by the ideals and the values that they had in terms of social justice and human welfare and well-being and belief in God, to go off and become a Catholic priest." Bongiorno later worked as a Roman Catholic priest. He holds a master's degree in theology from the Pontifical Urban University in Rome.

He is now married with two daughters and is a second cousin of Bernard Bongiorno, a former justice of the Supreme Court of Victoria. Paul

Career

Bongiorno started in television at the Seven Network in Melbourne in 1974, moved to WIN TV in Wollongong later that year, then moved to Network Ten in Brisbane in 1978 as a reporter and, for a time, a weather presenter. In Brisbane, he won four Walkley Awards for investigative journalism as well as reporting state politics and writing for The Bulletin magazine. He has been with Network Ten's Canberra bureau since 1988. In November 2010, he was appointed national affairs editor for Ten News with Hugh Riminton, now the political editor and bureau chief in Canberra.

A veteran political broadcaster, he regularly appeared on Ten's news and weekday programs. He is also a regular commentator on radio.

Bongiorno hosted Ten's national Sunday morning show, Meet the Press, from 1996 until 2012.

In June 2014, he took voluntary redundancy from Network Ten. In August of that year he became a regular contributor to The Saturday Paper

Political views

Bongiorno is a regular contributor on ABC Radio National Breakfast and the left-wing The Saturday Paper.

He describes Sir John Kerr (the Governor-General who sacked Labor Prime Minister Gough Whitlam) as a "venal deceptive man", and the senior judges who advised him as "lacking moral compass". He believes the reserve powers of the governor-general should be scrapped.

On Radio National, Bongiorno likened the conservative Liberal-National Abbott Government to a "dictatorship". He describes Tony Abbott as "famous for saying the exact opposite of what reality is". He describes Liberal Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull as the "best thing [the Liberal-National Party Coalition] has going for it".

Honours

In the January 2014, Australia Day Honours List Bongiorno was made a Member of the Order of Australia (AM) "For significant service to the print and broadcast media as a journalist, political commentator and editor."