Bernard Francis Kilgariff AM was an Australian politician.
16 Facts About Bernie Kilgariff
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Bernie Kilgariff was one of the founders of the Country Liberal Party and served as a member of the Northern Territory Legislative Assembly which included a stint as Deputy Majority Leader.
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Bernie Kilgariff was elected to the Australian Senate in 1975, and initially sat with the National Country Party until 1979, before sitting with the Liberal Party for the rest of his federal political career.
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Bernie Kilgariff was born in Adelaide, South Australia, and in 1929 arrived in Alice Springs with his family on one of the first Ghan trains from Adelaide.
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Bernie Kilgariff attended the Hartley Street School, and in 1938, the local Catholic school.
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On 17 June 1943, Bernie Kilgariff enlisted in the Australian Army and served overseas.
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Bernie Kilgariff agreed and was elected, beginning a long political career.
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Bernie Kilgariff supported the North Australia Party at the 1965 Legislative Council elections.
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Bernie Kilgariff was one of the founders of the Country Liberal Party, an independent political party consisting of Country Party and Liberal Party members, to field candidates at the 1974 Legislative Council elections.
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Bernie Kilgariff was elected to the Assembly for Alice Springs, and was named the first Speaker of the Assembly.
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Bernie Kilgariff resigned on 16 July 1975 to become Deputy Majority Leader.
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Bernie Kilgariff sat with the parliamentary National Country Party room, due to the affiliation between the CLP and the National Country Party.
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In 1979, after CLP became affiliated with the Liberal Party and permitted its federal parliamentarians to sit in the "Party Rooms of their choice in Canberra", Bernie Kilgariff chose to sit with the parliamentary Liberal Party from 8 March 1979.
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Bernie Kilgariff's daughter Fran is a former mayor of Alice Springs, who ran as a Labor Party candidate in the 2005 Northern Territory general election.
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Bernie Kilgariff died on 13 April 2010, after suffering an ongoing illness.
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Bernie Kilgariff was awarded the Order of Australia Medal in the 1989 Queen's Birthday Honours for continued service to the Northern Territory through the Northern Territory Landcare Council, the Anti-Rabbit Research Foundation, the Cattleman's Association, the Australia Day Council and St John Ambulance.