Kim Christian Beazley (born 14 December 1948) is an Australian former politician and diplomat. Since 2022 he has served as chairman of the Australian War Memorial. Previously, he was leader of the Australian Labor Party (ALP) and leader of the opposition from 1996 to 2001 and 2005 to 2006, having previously been a cabinet minister in the Hawke and Keating governments. After leaving parliament, he served as ambassador to the United States from 2010 to 2016 and 33rd governor of Western Australia from 2018 to 2022.
Beazley was born in Perth, the son of politician Kim Beazley Sr. He studied at the University of Western Australia and Balliol College, Oxford, as a Rhodes Scholar. After a period as a lecturer at Murdoch University, Beazley was elected to Parliament at the 1980 election, winning the Division of Swan. Prime Minister Bob Hawke appointed Beazley to the cabinet following Labor's victory at the 1983 election, and Beazley served as a minister continuously through to the party's defeat at the 1996 election. His roles included Minister for Defence from 1984 to 1990, Leader of the House from 1988 to 1996, Minister for Finance from 1993 to 1996 and the ninth deputy prime minister from 1995 to 1996.
After Labor's 1996 defeat, Beazley was elected unopposed as Labor Leader, replacing Paul Keating. Despite winning the popular vote at the 1998 election, Beazley could not win enough seats to form government, and after a second defeat in 2001, he resigned the leadership. He attempted twice to return to the leadership, doing so in 2005 after Labor lost the 2004 election, but was successfully challenged by Kevin Rudd in December 2006 following poor opinion polling. Beazley retired from Parliament at the 2007 election, which Labor won, and in 2010 was appointed Ambassador to the United States. He held this role until 2016, before being nominated as Governor of Western Australia by the premier, Mark McGowan, in 2018.
Beazley was born at King Edward Memorial Hospital in Subiaco, Western Australia, on 14 December 1948. His father, Kim Beazley, was the Labor MP for Fremantle from 1945 to 1977 and served as Minister for Education in the Whitlam government from 1972 to 1975. His mother, Betty Judge, was an Australian athletics champion and record-holder. Beazley's uncle, the Reverend Syd Beazley, who was one of seven Methodist missionaries serving local people in Rabaul, was one of 208 civilians and 805 soldiers taken as prisoners by the invading forces of Japan, who later died in the sinking of the SS Montevideo Maru in July 1942.
Beazley contracted polio at the age of six. He was educated at Hollywood Senior High School and the University of Western Australia, from which he holds a Bachelor of Arts and a Master of Arts. Beazley subsequently won a Rhodes Scholarship at Balliol College, Oxford and graduated with a Master of Philosophy. While at Oxford, he befriended Tony Blair, who would later become Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, and Geoff Gallop, who would later become Premier of Western Australia. On his return to Australia, Beazley tutored and lectured in politics at Murdoch University in Perth. A Labor Party member since his youth, he joined the right-wing Labor Unity faction, alongside fellow future Cabinet ministers Graham Richardson and John Ducker. Beazley won selection for the seat of Division of Swan in 1979, and was elected to the House of Representatives at the 1980 election.
Beazley was considered a protege of newly elected prime minister Bob Hawke, who like Beazley was a Western Australian former Rhodes Scholar. Hawke appointed Beazley to the Cabinet immediately after his election in 1983, making him Minister for Aviation. Following a reshuffle after the 1984 election, Beazley was promoted to become Minister for Defence, a role he would hold until 1990, making him one of the longest-serving holders of that post. Beazley took a particularly active role as defence minister, appearing frequently in the press, and was responsible for establishing the Royal Australian Navy's submarine program, although this would be beset by technical problems. Beazley's time as defence minister, combined with his lifelong interest in military matters and enthusiasm for military hardware earned him the nickname "Bomber Beazley" in the press.
In 1988, Hawke appointed Beazley to the additional role of Leader of the House, a position he would continue to hold until the end of the Labor government in 1996. After the 1990 election, Beazley requested to be moved to the role of Minister for Transport and Communications in order to gain greater exposure to domestic political issues. He served in this role until 1991, and fervently supported Hawke during that year's leadership tensions between Hawke and Paul Keating. After Keating successfully challenged Hawke and became Prime Minister in December 1991, he was moved to become Minister for Employment and Education, putting Beazley in charge of overseeing the creation of the government's welfare-to-work programs as part of the economic package 'One Nation'.
Beazley was considered to be a strong supporter of Keating following Labor's fifth consecutive victory at the 1993 election, and in a reshuffle that year, Keating appointed Beazley as Minister for Finance, where he helped to establish the Government's landmark reform of establishing compulsory superannuation schemes. After Brian Howe chose to retire from politics in June 1995, Beazley was elected unopposed to succeed him as Deputy Leader of the Labor Party and was duly appointed deputy prime minister, a role which he held until Labor's defeat at the 1996 election.
Beazley's hold on his seat of Swan grew increasingly tenuous over the years. He saw his majority more than halved in 1990, an election that came during a bad time for the incumbent Labor government in Western Australia. Three years later, he was nearly defeated despite a nationwide swing to Labor. Ahead of the 1996 election, Beazley successfully sought nomination for the safer Labor seat of Brand, just south of his previous seat.
First term as Leader of the Opposition, 1996–2001
After Labor's heavy defeat by the Coalition under John Howard in 1996, Beazley was elected unopposed as Leader of the Labor Party, becoming Leader of the Opposition.
Beazley made a strong start in the role, quickly gaining a lead in opinion polls, particularly after Howard broke his previous commitment not to introduce a Goods and Services Tax (GST). Beazley was Labor's lead representative at the Constitutional Convention in February 1998 which was called to discuss the issue of Australia becoming a republic. Beazley advocated "minimalist" change and described transition to a republic as "unfinished business" for Australia. He said that foreigners "find it strange and anachronistic, as many Australians now clearly do, that our head of state is not an Australian". Subsequently, at the 1998 election, Labor polled a majority of the two-party vote and received the largest swing to a first-term opposition since 1934. However, while Labor regained much of what it had lost in its severe defeat of two years earlier, the uneven concentration of their vote left Labor eight seats short of making Beazley Prime Minister. Much of the Labor swing came in seats it already held, not in the seats it needed to take back government.
Despite defeat, by securing a majority of the vote just two years after a landslide defeat, Beazley was re-elected unopposed as Labor Leader. The party spent much of the following three years well ahead in the opinion polls, and seemed set to win the next election, but in August 2001, following the Tampa affair when the Howard government refused to allow several hundred asylum seekers to disembark on Christmas Island, Beazley was judged to have failed in response. Beazley's momentum was further stalled by the September 11 attacks, which saw an increase in support for Howard, who pledged to support the United States, and Labor subsequently lost the 2001 election.