Meredith Burgmann


Meredith Anne Burgmann is an Australian politician and Labor Party member and a former President of the New South Wales Legislative Council.

Early years

Burgmann was born in July 1947 at Beecroft, New South Wales to parents Victor Dudley Burgmann and Lorna Constance Bradbury. Her late father was a chairman of the CSIRO. Her sister is Verity Burgmann.
She attended Blackfriars Correspondence School and Abbotsleigh School in Sydney, where she was headgirl.
She attended Sydney University and obtained a Bachelor of Arts in 1969, majoring in English and Government. She continued her studies at the University and obtained a Master of Arts in 1973 specialising in Foreign Policy. In 1981 she completed her doctorate on Industrial Relations at Macquarie University. She became the first female President of the National Tertiary Education Union.
Burgmann joined the Australian Labor Party in 1971. She was involved in the Industrial Relations Committee between 1990 and 1995, the Foreign Affairs Committee between 1986 and 1990, as well as being a delegate to the Sydney Federal Executive Council. She was a Member of the New South Wales Labor Council between 1978 and 1991 and also of the ACTU Congress between 1983 and 1989.
She was a tutor and lecturer at Macquarie University from 1974, and became a senior lecturer at Macquarie University in 1989 and remained in that role until 1991. She taught Industrial Relations and Politics.
In 1985 she married Glen Batchelor and they have one son. Batchelor and Burgmann divorced in 1990.

Political career

Some of her first forays into politics have been as an activist. She has been arrested 21 times and spent time in prison for running onto the Sydney Cricket Ground in 1971 during the Springboks tour. She claims to be the only person sent to prison for running onto a sporting field during a major sporting event.
She was elected to the New South Wales Legislative Council on 25 May 1991.

Later life

In the September 2008 New South Wales Council elections, Burgmann ran for the positions of Lord Mayor and councillor in the City of Sydney Council. She was defeated in the mayoral ballot by incumbent Lord Mayor Clover Moore, becoming Labor's only councillor on the Council. She retired from the council in 2012. Burgmann is also a Consultant to the United Nations Development Program.
Burgmann was made a Member of the Order of Australia in the 2020 Australia Day Honours for "significant service to the people and Parliament of New South Wales."
Burgmann was an Ambassador for the Sydney Swans from 2005 until 2018. Burgmann was the President of the Australian Council for International Development, the peak body for the Australian NGO international aid and development sector, from 2008 until 2012.

Publications

In 1993, Burgmann started the Ernie Awards to draw attention to comments regarded as misogynist, and in 2007 published with Yvette Andrews The Ernies Book: 1000 Terrible Things Australian Men Have Said About Women. She has also published articles on industrial, environmental and Aboriginal rights issues.
In 1998 Burgmann and her sister Verity wrote Green Bans, Red Union: Environmental Activism and the New South Wales Builders Labourers' Federation.