49 Facts About Cory Bernardi

Cory Bernardi was born on 6 November 1969 and is an Australian conservative political commentator and former politician.

Cory Bernardi was a Senator for South Australia from 2006 to 2020, and was the leader of the Australian Conservatives, a minor political party he founded in 2017 but disbanded in 2019.

Cory Bernardi is a former member of the Liberal Party of Australia, having represented the party in the Senate from 2006 to 2017.

Cory Bernardi entered politics in 2006 when he was selected by the Liberal Party to fill a Senate seat vacancy for South Australia left by the resignation of Robert Hill.

In June 2019, Cory Bernardi announced that he was disbanding the Australian Conservatives and the party was voluntarily deregistered by the Australian Electoral Commission on 25 June 2019.

Cory Bernardi announced his resignation from politics on 19 November 2019, and on 20 January 2020 resigned from the Senate with immediate effect.

Cory Bernardi was born and raised in Adelaide and attended Prince Alfred College in Kent Town, South Australia.

Cory Bernardi's father was an Italian immigrant who came to Australia in 1958.

Cory Bernardi's maternal grandfather was a trade unionist and staunch Labor supporter.

Cory Bernardi took a business and management course at South Australian Institute of Technology before winning a scholarship and furthering his rowing career at the Australian Institute of Sport in 1989.

Cory Bernardi subsequently worked as a stockbroker and financial adviser before entering politics.

Cory Bernardi and his Irish-born wife Sinead, an economics graduate, have two sons.

Cory Bernardi made state representative appearances for South Australia in the State Youth VIII at the Australian Rowing Championships in 1987 and 1988.

In 1989, Cory Bernardi was selected in the seven seat of the South Australian Men's Senior VIII.

Later that year Cory Bernardi suffered a back injury that effectively ended his rowing career.

On 17 February 2007, Cory Bernardi was pre-selected ahead of Simon Birmingham and Senator Grant Chapman by the State Council of the South Australian Liberal Party to be the number one candidate on the South Australian Liberal Senate ticket for the federal election to be held in late 2007.

At the election, Cory Bernardi was elected to a full six-year term.

Cory Bernardi was again given the first place on the Liberal ticket at the 2013 federal election and was re-elected.

Cory Bernardi was elected for a term of six years, ending on 30 June 2022.

In December 2007, Cory Bernardi was appointed the federal Coalition's Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Families and Community Services.

On 19 March 2008, Cory Bernardi was named in a story published in The Australian newspaper as having been linked to a scheme that sold financial advice on how divorcees could hide money from their former spouses.

In October, Cory Bernardi caused a stir with a speech to the Senate against the Same-Sex Relationships Bill 2008 supported by the Liberal Party.

Cory Bernardi was removed from the Shadow Ministry by Turnbull in February 2009 after reportedly making unsubstantiated claims regarding a fellow Liberal MP in his weekly blog.

In September 2012, Cory Bernardi resigned from his position as parliamentary secretary as a result of statements he had made the day before, when he argued that permitting same-sex marriages would lead to legalised polygamy and bestiality.

Cory Bernardi was re-elected for a six-year term in the Senate at the July 2016 election.

In September 2016, Cory Bernardi spoke in favour of the repeal of section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act, which prohibits speech that is reasonably likely to "offend, insult, humiliate or intimidate on the basis of race, colour or national or ethnic origin".

In December 2016 Cory Bernardi got into a public spat with former Prime Minister Tony Abbott over reports that Cory Bernardi may start his own party.

In February 2017, seven months after the 2016 election, Cory Bernardi left the Liberal Party to form a separate party, the Australian Conservatives, which was born out of Cory Bernardi's Australian Conservatives movement.

In June 2019, Cory Bernardi announced that the Australian Conservatives would apply to be voluntarily deregistered with the Australian Electoral Commission.

Cory Bernardi cited a poor result in the 2019 Australian federal election, and that the removal of Malcolm Turnbull as prime minister meant that his supporters would return to the Liberal Party.

In November 2019, Cory Bernardi announced that he would resign from his Senate position; his resignation formally occurred on 20 January 2020.

On 21 April 2007, Cory Bernardi published an essay questioning whether global warming was caused by human activities.

In 2011, Cory Bernardi referred to the controversy over paying funeral expenses for asylum-seekers, declaring it was "wrong" for the government to pay.

Cory Bernardi has shared values with Dutch anti-Islam politician Geert Wilders whom he met while on a trip to Europe.

Cory Bernardi offered to assist Wilders in a visit to Australia but, in February 2013 when Wilders did come, Cory Bernardi did not meet with him.

Wilders stated in an interview that Cory Bernardi's decision not to meet him was a "sad but true" reflection on politics, particularly in an election year.

Abbott rejected suggestions that Cory Bernardi was trying to bring Wilders to Australia, saying the Coalition had nothing to do with the organisation of any trip.

In September 2016, Cory Bernardi proposed the Turnbull government take up a modified version of the immigration policy of One Nation, aiming to mollify people fearing Muslim immigration as he felt soft immigration policies were to blame for a fall in government support.

Cory Bernardi has publicly expressed his concern over the effect of Australia's public broadcaster, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, on commercial operators.

Cory Bernardi's view is that the ABC has grown beyond its initial charter and its size is unjustifiably encroaching into the online news sphere at the expense of commercial operators and media diversity.

Cory Bernardi agrees that the ABC provides useful services to regional areas often under-serviced by commercial operators; however, he suggests that the scale of the ABC's funding should be reviewed.

Cory Bernardi has said that permitting same-sex marriages would lead to legalised polygamy and bestiality; and said that the "safe schools program" designed to make homosexual children feel safer at school "bullies" heterosexual children.

Several of his colleagues from the Liberal Party at the time distanced themselves from Cory Bernardi's comments, including Tony Abbott who opposes same-sex marriage.

Cory Bernardi was one of twelve senators who voted against what became the Marriage Amendment Act 2017.

Cory Bernardi is anti-abortion saying those who support it are "pro death".

On 16 November 2017 Cory Bernardi moved a motion in the Senate to ban abortion on gender grounds.

Cory Bernardi was one of the 10 senators who voted in favour of the motion, which was defeated 10 votes to 36.

ABC later stated that the words were intended only as shorthand for a new conservative party and not to suggest that Cory Bernardi shared the views of Golden Dawn.

Cory Bernardi was criticised for comments regarding the role of women in the military.