Foley was born in Sydney and from the age of seven was raised solely by his mother. In an interview conducted when he became NSW Opposition Leader, Foley stated his mother instilled in him a triple faith of "the Labor Party, the Catholic Church and the Eastern Suburbs Rugby League Club". Foley was active in student representative politics at university and graduated with a Bachelor of Arts from the University of New South Wales, the first in his family to attend university. Foley is a keen cricketer. In 1999 he worked as an accredited Triple J cricket correspondent reporting from the Australian/West Indies series in the Caribbean.
Career
Starting his working life while a student as a telemarketer for the Guide Dog Association of NSW 1988–90, Foley became NSW President of the National Union of Students 1991, and then worked in the office of Labor SenatorBruce Childs 1992–96. Between 1996 and 2000, he was a union organiser with the NSW branch of the Australian Services Union and became Secretary of that branch between 2000 and 2003. This involved representing the interests of charity and drug and alcohol rehabilitation workers. Referring to that period in his first speech in the NSW Parliament, Foley stated: A member of Labor's left faction, before his appointment to the Legislative Council, Foley was the assistant general secretary of the New South Wales Labor Party from 2003 to 2010. Foley was a sportswriter for The Punch from 2009.
Political career
Foley was appointed to the Legislative Council to fill the vacancy caused by the resignation of Ian Macdonald. He describes himself as a "practising Catholic on the Left of politics" Foley voted in favour of same sex adoption bill in 2010 and in 2015 announced his support behind federal legislation for same-sex marriage. Foley said: "I have an open mind. I continue to talk to many people, including gay and lesbianfriends of mine about this issue". Following the resignation of John Robertson as leader of the parliamentary Labor Party, Foley contested the leadership in the vote held on 5 January 2015. After the withdrawal of Michael Daley and Steve Whan as leadership contenders, Foley was elected unopposed. He was endorsed as the Labor candidate for the safe Labor seat of Auburn at the 2015 state election, after the incumbent member Barbara Perry stood aside to allow him to transfer to the lower house from the Legislative Council. He went on to win the seat, however, with a small swing against his party in the electorate. Foley did manage to pick up a 14-seat swing, and recovered much of what Labor had lost four years earlier. Notably, Labor regained many seats in its longstanding heartlands of west Sydney, the Central Coast, and the Hunter that had been swept up by the Coalition. It reduced the Coalition majority from 22 seats to seven. In October 2018, NSW Corrections Minister David Elliott raised an allegation in the Legislative Assembly about an incident where Foley had "a little bit too much to drink at a party and harassed an ABC journalist." Later that month, ABC journalist Ashleigh Raper released a statement, alleging that at an event in November 2016, Foley "placed his hand down the back of her dress and inside her underpants." Hours later, Foley read a statement in which he resigned as leader of the Labor Party, but denied the allegation and said he would commence defamation proceedings against Raper in the Federal Court. Later in November, he dropped the case against Raper.
Views
Foley has stated his values are "social democratic values": In 2018, Foley talked about White flight. He was condemned by Premier Gladys Berejiklian for his view that an influx of people of non-European descent had driven many Anglo Australians to leave parts of Sydney.
