Michael Daley


Michael John Daley is an Australian politician who was the Leader of the Opposition in the Parliament of New South Wales from November 2018 to March 2019. He is currently a member of the New South Wales Legislative Assembly representing Maroubra for the Australian Labor Party since 2005. Daley is aligned with the Labor Right faction.

Biography

Daley is of Irish Catholic background. He was educated at Marcellin College, Randwick, finishing in 1983. He spent 13 years as a Customs officer with the Australian Customs Service during which time he studied law at night. In 1998 having completed his legal studies he was admitted to the Supreme Court of New South Wales as a legal practitioner and began to pursue a career as a lawyer, and worked for a year in a law firm in central Sydney before spending five years as a senior in-house lawyer with NRMA Motoring and Services.
Daley was elected as a councillor to Randwick City Council in 1995 and served as deputy mayor from 2000 to 2004.

Personal life

Daley married Christina Ithier in 2005 whom he met "at a photocopier" at his legal firm in 1997. She had two children from a previous marriage that Daley counts as his own. He and Christina have since had two other children, Olivia, and Austin.

Political career

Daley was elected to represent Maroubra for the Australian Labor Party in 2005 following the retirement from politics of former premier Bob Carr. Daley served on the backbench until the elevation of Nathan Rees as Premier of New South Wales in September 2008 when Daley became the Minister for Roads. Daley held this portfolio until a cabinet reshuffle in September 2009 where he was subsequently appointed Minister for Police and Minister for Finance.
When Kristina Keneally became Premier in December 2009 he remained as Minister for Police and Minister for Finance until the 2011 state election. Daley was believed to be a potential candidate for the Labor leadership, however, did not contest it. As a result, John Robertson was elected unopposed as Keneally's replacement, and Daley was appointed as Shadow Treasurer and Shadow Minister for Finance and Services in the Robertson shadow ministry.

Leader of the Opposition

Following Luke Foley's resignation of the role, Daley nominated for the role of New South Wales Labor leader and Leader of the New South Wales Opposition. On 10 November 2018, Daley won the leadership spill against Chris Minns 33 votes to 12 and was elected as the Leader of the Labor Party in New South Wales and became the 38th NSW Leader of the Opposition.
On 19 March, a September 2018 video surfaced in which Daley made comments about Asian immigration in Sydney. Daley said "Our young children will flee and who are they being replaced with? They are being replaced by young people from typically Asia with PhDs," and "So there's a transformation happening in Sydney now where our kids are moving out and foreigners are moving in and taking their jobs".
Daley apologised from his comments, stating "What I was referring to was housing affordability in Sydney... I could've expressed myself better, no offence was meant."
In March 2019 he led his party in the unsuccessful 2019 election. He subsequently stood aside as leader, and withdrew his candidacy for the subsequent leadership ballot after initially stating that he would contest it.