Graham Michael Quirk (born c. 1958) is a former Australian politician who served as the 16th

Lord Mayor of Brisbane The Lord Mayor of Brisbane is the chief executive of the City of Brisbane, the capital of the Australian state of Queensland, and the head of the Brisbane City Council. Lord Mayor Adrian Schrinner of the Liberal National Party was sworn in o ...

. From 2008 until 2011, he was Deputy Lord Mayor under

Campbell Newman Campbell Kevin Thomas Newman (born 12 August 1963) is an Australian former politician who served as the 38th Premier of Queensland from 26 March 2012 to 14 February 2015. He served as the member for Ashgrove in the Legislative Assembly of Que ...

, succeeding the latter when Newman stepped down to prepare to contest the 2012 Queensland State Election, at which he was elected as the

Premier of Queensland The premier of Queensland is the head of government in the Australian state of Queensland. By convention the premier is the leader of the party with a parliamentary majority in the Legislative Assembly of Queensland. The premier is appointed ...

. Quirk served as a Councillor in the

City of Brisbane The City of Brisbane is a local government area (LGA) which comprises the inner portion of Greater Brisbane, the capital of Queensland, Australia. Its governing body is the Brisbane City Council. The LGAs in the other mainland state capitals ...

since 1985. Quirk is a member of the

Liberal National Party of Queensland The Liberal National Party of Queensland (LNP) is a major conservative political party in Queensland, Australia. It was formed in 2008 by a merger of the Queensland divisions of the Liberal Party and the National Party. In most other states ...

, affiliated federally with the

Liberal Party of Australia The Liberal Party of Australia (LP) is the prominent centre-right political party in Australia. It is considered one of the two major parties in Australian politics, the other being the Australian Labor Party (ALP). The Liberal Party was fo ...

. Quirk was elected as Lord Mayor in his own right in a landslide at the 2012 Brisbane City Council election, winning 68.3% of the TPP mayoral vote and 18 of the 26 local wards. The Liberal National's increased their representation at the

2016 Brisbane City Council election The 2016 Brisbane City Council election was held on 19 March 2016 to elect a Lord Mayor of Brisbane, lord mayor and 26 councillors to the Brisbane City Council, City of Brisbane. The election was held as part of the 2016 Queensland local electio ...

to 19 wards, albeit with a smaller margin in the mayoral race with Quirk winning 59.3% of the TPP vote.

Political career

Quirk, an alumnus of St James College, entered Brisbane City Council when elected as Councillor for Rochedale Ward in 1985, aged 27. After three years he was appointed the city's Finance Chairman under Lord Mayor Sallyanne Atkinson and was later appointed Works Chairman. He then served as Opposition Spokesman on Development and Planning, Opposition Spokesman on Finance and Opposition Spokesman on Transport and Traffic. He served as Deputy Opposition Leader and was Opposition Leader at the time of

's election as Lord Mayor in 2004. Quirk was elected as Deputy Liberal Leader to Campbell Newman and was appointed to the role of Chairman of Transport and Major Projects (later known as Roads, TransApex and Traffic). In this role he administered one-third of the council's total budget expenditure for the implementation of TransApex, the road network and traffic management. In 2008 the LNP gained a majority of councillors and Quirk took on the roles of Deputy Mayor and Chairman of the Infrastructure Committee. Following Newman's departure from Lord Mayorship to enter state politics, Quirk was appointed the new Lord Mayor of Brisbane City. On 28 April 2012, Quirk won a four-year term as mayor in his own right at the

Brisbane City Council elections Brisbane ( ; ) is the capital and largest city of the state of Queensland and the third-most populous city in Australia, with a population of approximately 2.8 million. Brisbane lies at the centre of South East Queensland, an urban aggl ...

. He won a second full term in

2016 2016 was designated as: * International Year of Pulses by the sixty-eighth session of the United Nations General Assembly. * International Year of Global Understanding (IYGU) by the International Council for Science (ICSU), the Internationa ...

. In March 2019 Quirk announced his retirement from Council, his deputy Adrian Schrinner was subsequently elected his successor. In December 2019, federal Infrastructure Minister Michael McCormack appointed Quirk to the board of Infrastructure Australia, which provides advice to government and industry on Australia’s infrastructure policy and projects.

Personal life

Quirk is married to wife Anne. They have three daughters, with the eldest having

cerebral palsy Cerebral palsy (CP) is a group of movement disorders that appear in early childhood. Signs and symptoms vary among people and over time, but include poor coordination, spasticity, stiff muscles, Paresis, weak muscles, and tremors. There may b ...

References

External links

Quirk website
grahamquirk.com.au; accessed 12 September 2014. {{DEFAULTSORT:Quirk, Graham Living people Liberal National Party of Queensland politicians Mayors and lord mayors of Brisbane Place of birth missing (living people) Year of birth missing (living people)