1. Neal Blewett, AC was born on 24 October 1933 and is an Australian Labor Party politician, diplomat and historian.
16 Facts About Neal Blewett
1. 2.
Neal Blewett was the Member of the House of Representatives for Bonython from 1977 to 1994.
3.
Neal Blewett received a Rhodes Scholarship and studied PPE at Jesus College, Oxford between 1957 and 1959 for a further BA.
4.
Neal Blewett obtained a PhD from the University of Oxford in 1967.
5.
An historian of British electoral politics of the Edwardian era, in 1972 Neal Blewett published a study of the British general elections of January and December 1910.
6.
In 1974 Neal Blewett was appointed professor of politics at Flinders University in South Australia, a position he held until 1977 when he ran for parliament.
7.
When Labor under Bob Hawke won government in the 1983 election, Neal Blewett was made Minister for Health.
8.
Neal Blewett supported Paul Keating in his successful 1991 leadership challenge against Hawke, and when Keating became Prime Minister, Neal Blewett became Minister for Social Security until he resigned from politics in 1994, sparking a Bonython by-election.
9.
In 1994, Neal Blewett was appointed Australian High Commissioner to the United Kingdom, as which he served until 1998.
10.
Neal Blewett has received honorary degrees from the University of Tasmania, the University of Hull and the Australian National University.
11.
Neal Blewett was appointed an Honorary Fellow of Jesus College Oxford in 1998.
12.
Neal Blewett was married for 26 years to Jill Blewett, a renowned Australian playwright, with whom he had two children.
13.
The South Australian coroner made no finding that her death was accidental, and in his 1999 memoir A Cabinet Diary, Neal Blewett said that his wife "took her own life in October 1988".
14.
Neal Blewett revealed he was homosexual in a May 2000 issue of The Age's Good Weekend magazine, which profiled his relationship with long-term partner Robert Brain, whom he had met as a university student 50 years previously.
15.
Brain and Neal Blewett moved in together in 1989, after which Neal Blewett successfully sued a radio station and two doctors for claiming that he was imposing wrong AIDS policy because he was gay and because the gay community would not support a more appropriate policy.
16.
The defamation was that Neal Blewett had imposed the wrong AIDS policy on Australia because he was gay and had refused to take the right action that gays wouldn't like.