Bernard Thomas Christopher Finn was born on 14 April 1961 and is a former Australian politician who was a member of the Victorian Legislative Council representing the Western Metropolitan Region from the election of November 2006 until he lost in the November 2022 election.
20 Facts About Bernie Finn
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Bernie Finn was previously the member for the electoral district of Tullamarine in the Victorian Legislative Assembly from October 1992 until September 1999.
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Bernie Finn was originally a member of the Democratic Labor Party.
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Bernie Finn was the Member for the District of Tullamarine from 1992 until 1999 when he lost his seat in the Steve Bracks led victory over the Kennett Liberal Government.
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Bernie Finn was the number one candidate on the Liberal Party of Australia ticket in the Western Metropolitan Region from 2006 to 2018.
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Bernie Finn was first elected to the Legislative Council in 2006 and re-elected in 2010,2014 and 2018.
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Bernie Finn previously served on the Coalition frontbench as the Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for autism spectrum disorder, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Electoral Integrity and Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Melbourne's West.
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In 2018 Bernie Finn was involved in a controversy where he returned to vote on a bill despite having been granted a "pair" to be absent from voting due to religious observation.
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In May 2022, Bernie Finn was expelled from the Victorian Liberal Party for "a series of inflammatory social media posts", including calling for abortion to be made illegal in all circumstances, and comparing the Victorian premier to Adolf Hitler.
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On 2 June, Bernie Finn rejoined the Democratic Labour Party and announced he would recontest the 2022 Victorian state election as the leader of the party.
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Bernie Finn was unsuccessful in his bid for re-election in 2022.
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On 6 August 2023, Bernie Finn left the Democratic Labour Party and joined Family First Party.
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Bernie Finn is running as a Victorian senate candidate in the 2025 Australian federal election.
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Bernie Finn is a climate change denier and was a critic of the Gillard government's carbon pricing scheme, stating in the Victorian Parliament in 2013 that "there has been no global warming for 17 years".
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Bernie Finn has attacked the climate change documentary An Inconvenient Truth, as well as reports on the subject in the British newspaper The Guardian.
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Bernie Finn went on to say that "we have to come to a conclusion that climate change is not so much a scientific thing as it is a political thing".
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Bernie Finn is a supporter of former US President Donald Trump and a believer of the Big Lie conspiracy.
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In January 2021, Bernie Finn was criticised for sharing conspiracy theories to his private Facebook page, falsely claiming Donald Trump was being "improperly" removed from office.
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Bernie Finn falsely suggested that antifa were behind the storming of the US Capitol and repeated unsubstantiated claims of election fraud about the 2020 presidential election.
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In February 2021 Bernie Finn, addressing the Reignite Democracy Australia Facebook group, criticised the COVID-19 pandemic lockdown measures imposed by the Victorian government, saying that maybe they were about hardline socialists' dislike of small businesses.