Stephen Loosley (born 29 December 1952) is an Australian lawyer and former politician. He was a

New South Wales New South Wales (commonly abbreviated as NSW) is a States and territories of Australia, state on the Eastern states of Australia, east coast of :Australia. It borders Queensland to the north, Victoria (state), Victoria to the south, and South ...

Labor Labour or labor may refer to: * Childbirth, the delivery of a baby * Labour (human activity), or work ** Manual labour, physical work ** Wage labour, a socioeconomic relationship between a worker and an employer ** Organized labour and the labour ...

Senator A senate is a deliberative assembly, often the upper house or Legislative chamber, chamber of a bicameral legislature. The name comes from the Ancient Rome, ancient Roman Senate (Latin: ''Senatus''), so-called as an assembly of the senior ...

from 1990 to 1995.

Early life

Loosley was born on 29 December 1952 in

Carlton, New South Wales Carlton is a suburb in southern Sydney, in the state of New South Wales, Australia. Carlton is located 15 kilometres south of the Sydney central business district and is part of the St George area. Carlton lies across the boundary of two lo ...

. He is the son of Jean Elizabeth (née Pike) and Bernard Alan Loosley. Loosley was educated at Carlton Public School before attending

Sydney Technical High School Sydney Technical High School is a state-financed Single-sex school, single-sex Selective school (New South Wales), academically selective secondary school, secondary day school for Single-sex education, boys, located in Bexley, New South Wales, B ...

from 1965. Between 1972 and 1975 he undertook a

Bachelor of Arts A Bachelor of Arts (abbreviated B.A., BA, A.B. or AB; from the Latin ', ', or ') is the holder of a bachelor's degree awarded for an undergraduate program in the liberal arts, or, in some cases, other disciplines. A Bachelor of Arts deg ...

degree at the

University of New South Wales The University of New South Wales (UNSW) is a public research university based in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. It was established in 1949. The university comprises seven faculties, through which it offers bachelor's, master's and docto ...

, graduating with first-class honours in political science.

Politics

Early involvement

Loosley joined the ALP in 1972 and was mentored by

Graham Richardson Graham Frederick Richardson (born 27 September 1949) is an Australian former Labor Party politician who was a Senator for New South Wales from 1983 to 1994 and served as a Cabinet Minister in both the Hawke and Keating governments. He is c ...

. In 1976 he began working as a research officer for Senator

Kerry Sibraa Kerry Walter Sibraa (born 12 October 1937) is a former Australian politician. He was a Senator for New South Wales from 1975 to 1994, representing the Australian Labor Party (ALP), and served as President of the Senate from 1987 to 1994. Early ...

. He subsequently joined the ALP headquarters as an organiser in 1977, becoming assistant general secretary in 1979 and succeeding Richardson as general secretary in 1983.

Senate

At the 1990 federal election, Loosley was elected to a six-year Senate term as the ALP's lead candidate in New South Wales. In the Senate, Loosley spoke frequently on foreign policy and human rights matters. He served as chair of the Joint Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade from 1993 to 1995. He resigned from the Senate on 21 May 1995, in order to pursue a legal career and for family reasons. Loosley served as National President of the ALP between 1991 and 1992, when he was pressured to resign amid controversy.

Later activities

Loosley completed a law degree in 1997, which he had begun in 1993 while still in the Senate. He joined Sydney law firm Dunhill Madden Butler, initially as director of its international and trade law division. He was made a partner in 1996 and remained with the firm following its acquisition by

PricewaterhouseCoopers PricewaterhouseCoopers, also known as PwC, is a multinational professional services network based in London, United Kingdom. It is the second-largest professional services network in the world and is one of the Big Four accounting firms, alon ...

in 1999, leaving in 2006 to join

Babcock & Brown Babcock & Brown LP (B&B) was a global investment and advisory firm, established in 1977, based in Sydney, Australia, that went into liquidation in 2009. Babcock & Brown Securities LLC is an active investment banking firm focused on equipment an ...

as a strategic adviser. After that firm went into liquidation in 2009 he worked for Minter Ellison until 2015 as a strategic counsel. Since March 17, 2008 Loosley has been the deputy chairman, Non-Executive Director, of

Thales Group Thales S.A., Trade name, trading as Thales Group (), is a French multinational corporation, multinational aerospace and defence industry, defence corporation specializing in electronics. It designs, develops and manufactures a wide variety of aer ...

on the Australian board of directors. Loosley is an expert on American politics and is a regular commentator on US elections in Australian media outlets. In 2018, he was elected a Fellow of the

Royal Society of New South Wales The Royal Society of New South Wales is a learned society based in Sydney, Australia. The Governor of New South Wales is the vice-regal patron of the Society. It is the oldest learned society in the Southern Hemisphere. The Society traces its ...

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Loosley, Stephen 1952 births Living people Members of the Australian Senate Members of the Australian Senate for New South Wales Australian Labor Party members of the Parliament of Australia Members of the Order of Australia People educated at Sydney Technical High School 20th-century Australian politicians Australian Labor Party officials