Stirling Griff is an Australian politician who has been a Senator for South Australia since 2016, representing the Nick Xenophon Team and Centre Alliance. His party changed its name from Nick Xenophon Team led by Senator Nick Xenophon to Centre Alliance in April 2018 after Xenophon ceased to be connected with the party. He served as deputy leader of the party in the Senate until April 2018, when it adopted its current name. He was also the NXT spokesperson for health, immigration and communications.
Background
Griff was born and raised in South Australia. He is of Jewish Lithuanian descent. He has lived and worked in Adelaide, regional South Australia and Melbourne. He is married to Kristin and has four children aged 16 to 30 in 2016. Griff has worked for the Bank of Adelaide, a radio network, Readers Digest, Young & Rubicam, as a consultant, for the SA branch of the Retail Traders Association, and as a retail businessman in telecommunications, owning '3 Mobile' shops. Since 2013 he has been involved with Nick Xenophon, principally as his campaign manager in 2013.
During the 2013 Federal Election campaign Griff was the campaign director for Nick Xenophon Group. He also was instrumental in developing a computer programme that assisted the campaign. Griff was second on the NXG ticket behind Xenophon. Despite receiving more votes than the Labor Party, only Xenophon managed to win a senate seat. This was because of preference flows against NXG. Following the establishment of the Nick Xenophon Team as a formal political party, Griff served as party secretary from 2013 to 2014 and party treasurer from 2014 to 2016. In 2015, Griff was interviewed by Adelaide-based online newspaper, InDaily. The paper declared Griff "the power behind the Xenophon throne". In another article, Griff said he did not support ongoing assistance from the government towards the Australian automotive industry, saying "I stray a little bit with Nick on this one". Griff also described how NXT was selecting candidates for the 2016 Election:
Australian Senate (2016–present)
Griff was elected to the Australian Senate at the 2016 federal election, taking his place from September 2016. He was made Deputy Leader of Nick Xenophon Team in August 2016. In his first speech, Griff called for the public ownership of electricity, water, gas and broadband utilities. He is reported to be a "strong advocate for emissions reductions". Griff brokered an such as Facebook and Google as a condition of his former party supporting the Turnbull governments media reforms. During his first term he supported same-sex marriage. He also provided support for a ban of "preferred" providers of medical and dental services, as well as the disclosure of doctors fees online by the government so that patients can better identify lower-cost services. Griff supported the federal Territories Rights Euthanasia Bill stating he has "faith that none of us, no matter our upbringing or faith, desire to see people and particularly those close to us suffer a distressing death" In June 2018, Griff attended the Rambam Israel Fellowship Program sponsored by the Australia/Israel and Jewish Affairs Council. The lobby group funded "transport, accommodation, meals and other associated costs". He has a particular interest in health genomics and was the principal advocate for a national Genomic Cancer Medicine Program that will treat more than 5,000 patients nationally. Griff also brokered a deal with the Morrison federal government to secure funding for a $80m South Australian immunoGENomics Cancer Institute to complement the Australian Bragg Centre for Proton Therapy for which his party helped secure for SA in 2017. Griff is a strong advocate for medical transparency, considering that "much of the medical industry operates like a secret society". The IVF industry has been a particular focus where he introduced a bill to ensure reporting of patient outcomes. This bill "spurred the IVF sector to finally start working towards disclosure of success rates for individual clinics". Griff gave a speech to parliament in February, 2020 calling for a motion to ban anime and manga depicting "child exploitation"
