Gareth Evans (politician)
Encyclopedia
Gareth John Evans, AO, QC
(born 5 September 1944), is a former Australian politician from 1978 to 1999 representing the Australian Labor Party
, serving in a number of ministries including Attorney-General
and Foreign Minister
from 1983 to 1996 in the Hawke
and Keating
governments. He was president and chief executive officer of the International Crisis Group
from 2000 to 2009. Soon after, he was appointed an honorary professorial fellow at the University of Melbourne
. In 2010, Evans was appointed Chancellor of the Australian National University
.
, where he graduated in arts and law; and Oxford University, where he took a Masters degree in philosophy, politics and economics. In 2004, he became an Honorary Fellow of Magdalen College
, his alma mater at Oxford.
He practised as a barrister
in Melbourne, specialising in representing trade union
s. From 1971 he was a lecturer and then a senior lecturer in constitutional law at Melbourne University, and was considered one of Australia's leading constitutional lawyers. In 1977 he edited Labor and the Constitution 1972–75, a collection of essays on constitutional issues during the Whitlam
government. He became a Queen's Counsel
in 1983.
Evans was active in the Australian Labor Party
from his student days, and was an unsuccessful Labor candidate for the Senate
in 1975. A member of the right-wing Labor Unity faction, he was a supporter of Bob Hawke
's ambitions to lead the party after the fall of the Whitlam government. He was also a strong civil libertarian
, and was vice-president of the Victorian Council for Civil Liberties (now Liberty Victoria).
replaced as Labor leader. This happened shortly before the 1983 federal election
, which Hawke won. Evans then became Attorney-General
.
to take surveillance photos of the Franklin Dam
project in Tasmania
, which the Hawke government was pledged to stop, over the objections of the Tasmanian Liberal
government. The Hawke government was accused of misusing the RAAF for domestic political purposes. Evans's use of RAAF planes led to his earning the nickname "Biggles
", after Captain W. E. Johns
's fictional aviation hero.
In December 1984, Hawke moved Evans to the less-sensitive portfolio of Resources and Energy
. In 1987, he moved to Transport and Communications
. He was appointed Foreign Minister in September 1988. He held the position for seven years and six months, implementing significant changes to Australia's foreign policy. The Hawke and Keating governments were committed to shifting emphasis from Australia's traditional relationships with the United States and the United Kingdom to increased involvement with Asian neighbours, particularly Indonesia
and China. To this end, Evans travelled extensively within the region, developing relations with counterparts in most Asian countries.
Evans also helped with development of the UN plan for the rebuilding of Cambodia
after the Vietnamese occupation; with negotiation of the International Chemical Weapons Convention; and with establishment of the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum and the ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF). He also initiated the Canberra Commission on the Elimination of Nuclear Weapons
, although little ultimately came of this project. In 1995 he received the Grawemeyer Award
for Ideas Improving World Order for his Foreign Policy
article "Cooperative Security and Intrastate Conflict".
.
In 1991, during a political storm over Indonesian military violence in East Timor, in his capacity as Australia's foreign minister, Evans defended the Indonesian military junta's actions by describing the Dili massacre
as 'an aberration, not an act of state policy'. This was despite growing evidence (both within Australian intelligence and the international media) of increasingly violent Indonesian military efforts to protect and extend their business interests in East Timor—interests that included coffee plantations, marble mines and large oil contracts—by utilizing starvation, napalm, torture and death camps. Oil contracts that Evans himself had co-signed with the Indonesian military junta that enabled Australian companies to share with the Suharto family in what would later be established as clearly East Timor's oil.
This connection was highlighted during an extensively publicised video recorded in a private jet over the Timor Sea. Senator Evans, replete with champagne offered an astonishingly naive toast, characterising the Timor Sea oil contract as "... uniquely unique". Later, in a coincidental occurrence, when carriers of a secretly-filmed video exposing the Dili massacre arrived in Australia, they were inexplicably strip-searched by customs officials. Fortunately, they had passed the massacre footage on to another carrier on the same flight, who brought it through customs unhindered. Evans' diplomatic failures regarding East Timor were directly linked to his failures to procure senior positions in the United Nations, including his ill-fated attempt to become the Secretary-General.
In 1993, as a member of the Keating government, Evans became Leader of the Government in the Senate. In this position, despite his heavy workload as Foreign Minister, he led the government's domestic legislative agenda in the upper house, where the government did not have a majority, and every bill had to be negotiated with the minor parties. He played a leading role in getting the government's native title
bills through the Senate following the High Court of Australia
's decision in Mabo v Queensland
.
Evans was the 1995 recipient of the Grawemeyer Award
worth US$200,000 for improving world order, awarded by the University of Louisville in Louisville, Kentucky.
Evans had long desired to move from the Senate to the House of Representatives
, where he hoped to pursue his leadership ambitions. His first attempt to do so, in 1984, had been thwarted by the Socialist Left faction, but in 1996 he gained endorsement for the seat of Holt
, in Melbourne's eastern suburbs, and was easily elected at the 1996 election.
During the Keating
government, Gareth Evans was widely considered as a possible candidate for the High Court of Australia
. Had he been appointed, he would have been the first politician appointed to the High Court since Lionel Murphy
's appointment in 1975. Although Evans sought appointment, his elevation to the Court was ultimately stymied.
, and he was appointed Shadow Treasurer by Leader Kim Beazley
.
During 1997 Evans orchestrated in secret the defection to the Labor Party of the leader of the Australian Democrats
, Senator Cheryl Kernot
, who resigned from the Senate in October and became a Labor House of Representatives candidate at the 1998 election. It later emerged that Evans had been having an affair with Kernot during the negotiations for her defection. (See details under Personal life, below.)
Labor's defeat at the 1998 election led to Evans's resignation from the opposition front bench, and in September 1999 he resigned from Parliament.
-based International Crisis Group
,. In 2000 and 2001, he co-chaired the International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty
(ICISS), appointed by the government of Canada
. Citing high workload and burnout
, he resigned in 2009.
In 2001, Evans was made an Officer of the Order of Australia
(AO). He was also a member of the UN Secretary-General's Panel on Threats, Challenges and Change, whose report A More Secure World: Our Shared Responsibility, was published in December 2004. He is a member of the Commission on Weapons of Mass Destruction sponsored by Sweden
and chaired by Hans Blix
, and of the International Task Force on Global Public Goods, chaired by Ernesto Zedillo
. He is an endorser of the Genocide Intervention Network
and serves on the International Editorial Board of the Cambridge Review of International Affairs
.
Evans is a member of the Board of Advisors of the Global Panel Foundation. In June 2008, the then Australian Prime Minister
, Kevin Rudd
, appointed him co-chair of the International Commission on Nuclear Non-proliferation and Disarmament
. In July 2008, he was selected as an inaugural fellow of the Australian Institute of International Affairs
. In October 2008, he was awarded an honorary doctorate of law by the University of Sydney
.
Evans is also a member of Collegium International
, an organisation of leaders with political, scientific, and ethical expertise whose goal is to provide new approaches in overcoming the obstacles in the way of a peaceful, socially just and an economically sustainable world.
In July 2009, Evans participated at the United Nations General Assembly in an interactive dialogue on Responsibility To Protect (R2P). On 11 August, he joined the University of Melbourne as an honorary professorial fellow in the School of Social and Political Sciences.
Evans was appointed the Chancellor of the Australian National University
effective 1 January 2010, and was installed as Chancellor by Governor-General
Quentin Bryce
at a ceremony on 18 February 2010, replacing Kim Beazley
following his appointment as Ambassador to the United States.
Evans is a Member of the GLF Global Leadership Foundation.
, with whom he has two adult children.
Evans conducted a protracted extramarital affair with fellow senator Cheryl Kernot
in the 1990s. Kernot was the leader of the Democrats
when she spectacularly defected to join the Australian Labor Party
in 1997. While their affair was reportedly well-known within Canberra
political circles, it was first made public in 2002 by Laurie Oakes
in his The Bulletin
column.
Evans considers himself a humanist and was awarded the Australian Humanist of the Year Award in 1990 by the Council of Australian Humanist Societies
.
Queen's Counsel
Queen's Counsel , known as King's Counsel during the reign of a male sovereign, are lawyers appointed by letters patent to be one of Her [or His] Majesty's Counsel learned in the law...
(born 5 September 1944), is a former Australian politician from 1978 to 1999 representing the Australian Labor Party
Australian Labor Party
The Australian Labor Party is an Australian political party. It has been the governing party of the Commonwealth of Australia since the 2007 federal election. Julia Gillard is the party's federal parliamentary leader and Prime Minister of Australia...
, serving in a number of ministries including Attorney-General
Attorney-General of Australia
The Attorney-General of Australia is the first law officer of the Crown, chief law officer of the Commonwealth of Australia and a minister of the Crown. The Attorney-General is usually a member of the Federal Cabinet, but there is no constitutional requirement that this be the case since the...
and Foreign Minister
Minister for Foreign Affairs (Australia)
In the Government of Australia, the Minister for Foreign Affairs is responsible for overseeing the international diplomacy section of the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade. In common with international practice, the office is often informally referred to as Foreign Minister...
from 1983 to 1996 in the Hawke
Bob Hawke
Robert James Lee "Bob" Hawke AC GCL was the 23rd Prime Minister of Australia from March 1983 to December 1991 and therefore longest serving Australian Labor Party Prime Minister....
and Keating
Paul Keating
Paul John Keating was the 24th Prime Minister of Australia, serving from 1991 to 1996. Keating was elected as the federal Labor member for Blaxland in 1969 and came to prominence as the reformist treasurer of the Hawke Labor government, which came to power at the 1983 election...
governments. He was president and chief executive officer of the International Crisis Group
International Crisis Group
The International Crisis Group is an international, non-profit, non-governmental organization whose mission is to prevent and resolve deadly conflicts around the world through field-based analyses and high-level advocacy.-History:...
from 2000 to 2009. Soon after, he was appointed an honorary professorial fellow at the University of Melbourne
University of Melbourne
The University of Melbourne is a public university located in Melbourne, Victoria. Founded in 1853, it is the second oldest university in Australia and the oldest in Victoria...
. In 2010, Evans was appointed Chancellor of the Australian National University
Australian National University
The Australian National University is a teaching and research university located in the Australian capital, Canberra.As of 2009, the ANU employs 3,945 administrative staff who teach approximately 10,000 undergraduates, and 7,500 postgraduate students...
.
Early life
Evans was born in Melbourne, Victoria, the son of a tram driver. He was educated at Melbourne High School; the University of MelbourneUniversity of Melbourne
The University of Melbourne is a public university located in Melbourne, Victoria. Founded in 1853, it is the second oldest university in Australia and the oldest in Victoria...
, where he graduated in arts and law; and Oxford University, where he took a Masters degree in philosophy, politics and economics. In 2004, he became an Honorary Fellow of Magdalen College
Magdalen College, Oxford
Magdalen College is one of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in England. As of 2006 the college had an estimated financial endowment of £153 million. Magdalen is currently top of the Norrington Table after over half of its 2010 finalists received first-class degrees, a record...
, his alma mater at Oxford.
He practised as a barrister
Barrister
A barrister is a member of one of the two classes of lawyer found in many common law jurisdictions with split legal professions. Barristers specialise in courtroom advocacy, drafting legal pleadings and giving expert legal opinions...
in Melbourne, specialising in representing trade union
Trade union
A trade union, trades union or labor union is an organization of workers that have banded together to achieve common goals such as better working conditions. The trade union, through its leadership, bargains with the employer on behalf of union members and negotiates labour contracts with...
s. From 1971 he was a lecturer and then a senior lecturer in constitutional law at Melbourne University, and was considered one of Australia's leading constitutional lawyers. In 1977 he edited Labor and the Constitution 1972–75, a collection of essays on constitutional issues during the Whitlam
Gough Whitlam
Edward Gough Whitlam, AC, QC , known as Gough Whitlam , served as the 21st Prime Minister of Australia. Whitlam led the Australian Labor Party to power at the 1972 election and retained government at the 1974 election, before being dismissed by Governor-General Sir John Kerr at the climax of the...
government. He became a Queen's Counsel
Queen's Counsel
Queen's Counsel , known as King's Counsel during the reign of a male sovereign, are lawyers appointed by letters patent to be one of Her [or His] Majesty's Counsel learned in the law...
in 1983.
Evans was active in the Australian Labor Party
Australian Labor Party
The Australian Labor Party is an Australian political party. It has been the governing party of the Commonwealth of Australia since the 2007 federal election. Julia Gillard is the party's federal parliamentary leader and Prime Minister of Australia...
from his student days, and was an unsuccessful Labor candidate for the Senate
Australian Senate
The Senate is the upper house of the bicameral Parliament of Australia, the lower house being the House of Representatives. Senators are popularly elected under a system of proportional representation. Senators are elected for a term that is usually six years; after a double dissolution, however,...
in 1975. A member of the right-wing Labor Unity faction, he was a supporter of Bob Hawke
Bob Hawke
Robert James Lee "Bob" Hawke AC GCL was the 23rd Prime Minister of Australia from March 1983 to December 1991 and therefore longest serving Australian Labor Party Prime Minister....
's ambitions to lead the party after the fall of the Whitlam government. He was also a strong civil libertarian
Civil liberties
Civil liberties are rights and freedoms that provide an individual specific rights such as the freedom from slavery and forced labour, freedom from torture and death, the right to liberty and security, right to a fair trial, the right to defend one's self, the right to own and bear arms, the right...
, and was vice-president of the Victorian Council for Civil Liberties (now Liberty Victoria).
1977–83
In 1977 Evans was elected to the Senate and appointed to the Opposition front bench in 1980, becoming Shadow Attorney-General. He took an active part in the campaign to have Bill HaydenBill Hayden
William George "Bill" Hayden AC was the 21st Governor-General of Australia. Prior to this, he represented the Australian Labor Party in parliament; he was a minister in the government of Gough Whitlam, and later became Leader of the Opposition, narrowly losing the 1980 federal election to the...
replaced as Labor leader. This happened shortly before the 1983 federal election
Australian federal election, 1983
Federal elections were held in Australia on 5 March 1983. All 125 seats in the House of Representatives, and all 64 seats in the Senate, were up for election, following a double dissolution...
, which Hawke won. Evans then became Attorney-General
Attorney-General of Australia
The Attorney-General of Australia is the first law officer of the Crown, chief law officer of the Commonwealth of Australia and a minister of the Crown. The Attorney-General is usually a member of the Federal Cabinet, but there is no constitutional requirement that this be the case since the...
.
1983–89
As Attorney-General, Evans undertook a large agenda for law reform on a range of issues. He immediately ran into controversy, however, by arranging for the Royal Australian Air ForceRoyal Australian Air Force
The Royal Australian Air Force is the air force branch of the Australian Defence Force. The RAAF was formed in March 1921. It continues the traditions of the Australian Flying Corps , which was formed on 22 October 1912. The RAAF has taken part in many of the 20th century's major conflicts...
to take surveillance photos of the Franklin Dam
Franklin Dam
The Franklin Dam or Gordon-below-Franklin Dam project was a proposed dam on the Gordon River in Tasmania, Australia, that was never constructed. The movement that eventually led to the project's cancellation became one of most significant environmental campaigns in Australian history.The dam was...
project in Tasmania
Tasmania
Tasmania is an Australian island and state. It is south of the continent, separated by Bass Strait. The state includes the island of Tasmania—the 26th largest island in the world—and the surrounding islands. The state has a population of 507,626 , of whom almost half reside in the greater Hobart...
, which the Hawke government was pledged to stop, over the objections of the Tasmanian Liberal
Liberal Party of Australia
The Liberal Party of Australia is an Australian political party.Founded a year after the 1943 federal election to replace the United Australia Party, the centre-right Liberal Party typically competes with the centre-left Australian Labor Party for political office...
government. The Hawke government was accused of misusing the RAAF for domestic political purposes. Evans's use of RAAF planes led to his earning the nickname "Biggles
Biggles
"Biggles" , a pilot and adventurer, is the title character and main hero of the Biggles series of youth-oriented adventure books written by W. E. Johns....
", after Captain W. E. Johns
W. E. Johns
William Earl Johns was an English pilot and writer of adventure stories, usually written under the name Captain W. E. Johns. He is best remembered as the creator of the ace pilot and adventurer Biggles.-Early life:...
's fictional aviation hero.
In December 1984, Hawke moved Evans to the less-sensitive portfolio of Resources and Energy
Minister for Resources and Energy (Australia)
The Australian Minister for Resources and Energy is Martin Ferguson, appointed on 3 December 2007. The Minister administers his portfolios through the Department of Resources, Energy and Tourism.-List of Ministers for Resources:...
. In 1987, he moved to Transport and Communications
Minister for Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development and Local Government (Australia)
The Australian Minister for Infrastructure and Transport is the Hon Anthony Albanese. On 3 December 2007 he replaced the Minister for Transport and Regional Services, the Hon Mark Vaile, who held office since August 2006, and the Minister for Local Government, Territories and Roads, the Hon Jim...
. He was appointed Foreign Minister in September 1988. He held the position for seven years and six months, implementing significant changes to Australia's foreign policy. The Hawke and Keating governments were committed to shifting emphasis from Australia's traditional relationships with the United States and the United Kingdom to increased involvement with Asian neighbours, particularly Indonesia
Indonesia
Indonesia , officially the Republic of Indonesia , is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania. Indonesia is an archipelago comprising approximately 13,000 islands. It has 33 provinces with over 238 million people, and is the world's fourth most populous country. Indonesia is a republic, with an...
and China. To this end, Evans travelled extensively within the region, developing relations with counterparts in most Asian countries.
Evans also helped with development of the UN plan for the rebuilding of Cambodia
Cambodia
Cambodia , officially known as the Kingdom of Cambodia, is a country located in the southern portion of the Indochina Peninsula in Southeast Asia...
after the Vietnamese occupation; with negotiation of the International Chemical Weapons Convention; and with establishment of the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum and the ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF). He also initiated the Canberra Commission on the Elimination of Nuclear Weapons
Canberra Commission on the Elimination of Nuclear Weapons
The Canberra Commission on the Elimination of Nuclear Weapons was initiated by the Prime Minister of Australia the Honourable Paul Keating in November 1995 to deliberate on issues of nuclear proliferation and how to eliminate the world of nuclear weapons. The result of the Commission was published...
, although little ultimately came of this project. In 1995 he received the Grawemeyer Award
Grawemeyer Award
The Grawemeyer Awards are five awards given annually by the University of Louisville in the state of Kentucky, United States. The prizes are presented to individuals in the fields of education, ideas improving world order, music composition, religion, and psychology...
for Ideas Improving World Order for his Foreign Policy
Foreign Policy
Foreign Policy is a bimonthly American magazine founded in 1970 by Samuel P. Huntington and Warren Demian Manshel.Originally, the magazine was a quarterly...
article "Cooperative Security and Intrastate Conflict".
1990–98
On 6 December 1990, Evans infamously became the first Australian senator to say "fuck" in the Senate, when he interjected "for fuck's sake" during a speech by Senator Robert HillRobert Hill
Robert Hill may refer to:*Robert Hill , former Australian Senator, Defence Minister and Ambassador to the United Nations*Robert Andrews Hill , U.S. federal judge*Robert C. Hill , American diplomat...
.
In 1991, during a political storm over Indonesian military violence in East Timor, in his capacity as Australia's foreign minister, Evans defended the Indonesian military junta's actions by describing the Dili massacre
Santa Cruz massacre
The Santa Cruz massacre was the shooting of East Timorese pro-independence demonstrators in the Santa Cruz cemetery in the capital, Dili, on 12 November 1991, during the Indonesian occupation of East Timor.-Background:...
as 'an aberration, not an act of state policy'. This was despite growing evidence (both within Australian intelligence and the international media) of increasingly violent Indonesian military efforts to protect and extend their business interests in East Timor—interests that included coffee plantations, marble mines and large oil contracts—by utilizing starvation, napalm, torture and death camps. Oil contracts that Evans himself had co-signed with the Indonesian military junta that enabled Australian companies to share with the Suharto family in what would later be established as clearly East Timor's oil.
This connection was highlighted during an extensively publicised video recorded in a private jet over the Timor Sea. Senator Evans, replete with champagne offered an astonishingly naive toast, characterising the Timor Sea oil contract as "... uniquely unique". Later, in a coincidental occurrence, when carriers of a secretly-filmed video exposing the Dili massacre arrived in Australia, they were inexplicably strip-searched by customs officials. Fortunately, they had passed the massacre footage on to another carrier on the same flight, who brought it through customs unhindered. Evans' diplomatic failures regarding East Timor were directly linked to his failures to procure senior positions in the United Nations, including his ill-fated attempt to become the Secretary-General.
In 1993, as a member of the Keating government, Evans became Leader of the Government in the Senate. In this position, despite his heavy workload as Foreign Minister, he led the government's domestic legislative agenda in the upper house, where the government did not have a majority, and every bill had to be negotiated with the minor parties. He played a leading role in getting the government's native title
Native title
Native title is the Australian version of the common law doctrine of aboriginal title.Native title is "the recognition by Australian law that some Indigenous people have rights and interests to their land that come from their traditional laws and customs"...
bills through the Senate following the High Court of Australia
High Court of Australia
The High Court of Australia is the supreme court in the Australian court hierarchy and the final court of appeal in Australia. It has both original and appellate jurisdiction, has the power of judicial review over laws passed by the Parliament of Australia and the parliaments of the States, and...
's decision in Mabo v Queensland
Mabo v Queensland
Mabo v Queensland was a landmark High Court of Australia decision recognising native title in Australia for the first time...
.
Evans was the 1995 recipient of the Grawemeyer Award
Grawemeyer Award
The Grawemeyer Awards are five awards given annually by the University of Louisville in the state of Kentucky, United States. The prizes are presented to individuals in the fields of education, ideas improving world order, music composition, religion, and psychology...
worth US$200,000 for improving world order, awarded by the University of Louisville in Louisville, Kentucky.
Evans had long desired to move from the Senate to the House of Representatives
Australian House of Representatives
The House of Representatives is one of the two houses of the Parliament of Australia; it is the lower house; the upper house is the Senate. Members of Parliament serve for terms of approximately three years....
, where he hoped to pursue his leadership ambitions. His first attempt to do so, in 1984, had been thwarted by the Socialist Left faction, but in 1996 he gained endorsement for the seat of Holt
Division of Holt
The Division of Holt is anAustralian Electoral Division in Victoria. The division was created in 1969 and is named for Harold Holt, who was Prime Minister of Australia 1966-67. It is located in...
, in Melbourne's eastern suburbs, and was easily elected at the 1996 election.
During the Keating
Paul Keating
Paul John Keating was the 24th Prime Minister of Australia, serving from 1991 to 1996. Keating was elected as the federal Labor member for Blaxland in 1969 and came to prominence as the reformist treasurer of the Hawke Labor government, which came to power at the 1983 election...
government, Gareth Evans was widely considered as a possible candidate for the High Court of Australia
High Court of Australia
The High Court of Australia is the supreme court in the Australian court hierarchy and the final court of appeal in Australia. It has both original and appellate jurisdiction, has the power of judicial review over laws passed by the Parliament of Australia and the parliaments of the States, and...
. Had he been appointed, he would have been the first politician appointed to the High Court since Lionel Murphy
Lionel Murphy
Lionel Keith Murphy, QC was an Australian politician and jurist who served as Attorney-General in the government of Gough Whitlam and as a Justice of the High Court of Australia from 1975 until his death.- Personal life :...
's appointment in 1975. Although Evans sought appointment, his elevation to the Court was ultimately stymied.
1996–99
The Keating government was defeated at the election, and Evans thus entered the House as an Opposition member. He was elected Deputy Leader of the Labor Party, defeating Simon CreanSimon Crean
Simon Findlay Crean is an Australian politician, and the current Minister for the Arts and Minister for Regional Australia, Regional Development and Local Government in the Australian Federal Government. He was leader of the Australian Labor Party and Leader of the Opposition at the Federal level,...
, and he was appointed Shadow Treasurer by Leader Kim Beazley
Kim Beazley
In the October 1998 election, Labor polled a majority of the two-party vote and received the largest swing to a first-term opposition since 1934. However, due to the uneven nature of the swing, Labor came up eight seats short of making Beazley Prime Minister....
.
During 1997 Evans orchestrated in secret the defection to the Labor Party of the leader of the Australian Democrats
Australian Democrats
The Australian Democrats is an Australian political party espousing a socially liberal ideology. It was formed in 1977, by a merger of the Australia Party and the New LM, after principals of those minor parties secured the commitment of former Liberal minister Don Chipp, as a high profile leader...
, Senator Cheryl Kernot
Cheryl Kernot
Cheryl Kernot is an Australian politician, academic, and political activist. She was a member of the Australian Senate representing Queensland for the Australian Democrats from 1990 to 1997, and the fifth leader of the Australian Democrats from 1993 to 1997...
, who resigned from the Senate in October and became a Labor House of Representatives candidate at the 1998 election. It later emerged that Evans had been having an affair with Kernot during the negotiations for her defection. (See details under Personal life, below.)
Labor's defeat at the 1998 election led to Evans's resignation from the opposition front bench, and in September 1999 he resigned from Parliament.
Life after politics
From January 2000 he was president and chief executive of the BrusselsBrussels
Brussels , officially the Brussels Region or Brussels-Capital Region , is the capital of Belgium and the de facto capital of the European Union...
-based International Crisis Group
International Crisis Group
The International Crisis Group is an international, non-profit, non-governmental organization whose mission is to prevent and resolve deadly conflicts around the world through field-based analyses and high-level advocacy.-History:...
,. In 2000 and 2001, he co-chaired the International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty
International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty
The International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty was an ad hoc commission of participants which in 2001 worked to popularize the concept of humanitarian intervention and democracy-restoring intervention under the name of "Responsibility to protect."The Commission was founded by...
(ICISS), appointed by the government of Canada
Canada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
. Citing high workload and burnout
Burnout (psychology)
Burnout is a psychological term for the experience of long-term exhaustion and diminished interest. Research indicates general practitioners have the highest proportion of burnout cases; according to a recent Dutch study in Psychological Reports, no less than 40% of these experienced high levels of...
, he resigned in 2009.
In 2001, Evans was made an Officer of the Order of Australia
Order of Australia
The Order of Australia is an order of chivalry established on 14 February 1975 by Elizabeth II, Queen of Australia, "for the purpose of according recognition to Australian citizens and other persons for achievement or for meritorious service"...
(AO). He was also a member of the UN Secretary-General's Panel on Threats, Challenges and Change, whose report A More Secure World: Our Shared Responsibility, was published in December 2004. He is a member of the Commission on Weapons of Mass Destruction sponsored by Sweden
Sweden
Sweden , officially the Kingdom of Sweden , is a Nordic country on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. Sweden borders with Norway and Finland and is connected to Denmark by a bridge-tunnel across the Öresund....
and chaired by Hans Blix
Hans Blix
is a Swedish diplomat and politician for the Liberal People's Party. He was Swedish Minister for Foreign Affairs . Blix was also the head of the United Nations Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission from March 2000 to June 2003, when he was succeeded by Dimitris Perrikos...
, and of the International Task Force on Global Public Goods, chaired by Ernesto Zedillo
Ernesto Zedillo
Ernesto Zedillo Ponce de León is a Mexican economist and politician. He served as President of Mexico from December 1, 1994 to November 30, 2000, as the last of the uninterrupted seventy year line of Mexican presidents from the Institutional Revolutionary Party...
. He is an endorser of the Genocide Intervention Network
Genocide Intervention Network
thumb|right|300px|Genocide Intervention Network logoThe Genocide Intervention Network is a non-profit organization that "envisions a world in which the global community is willing and able to protect civilians from genocide and mass atrocities...
and serves on the International Editorial Board of the Cambridge Review of International Affairs
Cambridge Review of International Affairs
Cambridge Review of International Affairs is a quarterly peer-reviewed academic journal on international relations....
.
Evans is a member of the Board of Advisors of the Global Panel Foundation. In June 2008, the then Australian Prime Minister
Prime Minister of Australia
The Prime Minister of the Commonwealth of Australia is the highest minister of the Crown, leader of the Cabinet and Head of Her Majesty's Australian Government, holding office on commission from the Governor-General of Australia. The office of Prime Minister is, in practice, the most powerful...
, Kevin Rudd
Kevin Rudd
Kevin Michael Rudd is an Australian politician who was the 26th Prime Minister of Australia from 2007 to 2010. He has been Minister for Foreign Affairs since 2010...
, appointed him co-chair of the International Commission on Nuclear Non-proliferation and Disarmament
International Commission on Nuclear Non-proliferation and Disarmament
The International Commission on Nuclear Non-proliferation and Disarmament is a joint initiative of the Australian and Japanese governments. It was proposed by Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd on 9 June 2008, and on 9 July 2008 Rudd and Japanese Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda agreed to establish...
. In July 2008, he was selected as an inaugural fellow of the Australian Institute of International Affairs
Australian Institute of International Affairs
The Australian Institute of International Affairs is a non-profit think tank based in Australia. Established in 1924 and formed as a national body in 1933, the organisation endeavours to promote interest in and understanding of international affairs...
. In October 2008, he was awarded an honorary doctorate of law by the University of Sydney
University of Sydney
The University of Sydney is a public university located in Sydney, New South Wales. The main campus spreads across the suburbs of Camperdown and Darlington on the southwestern outskirts of the Sydney CBD. Founded in 1850, it is the oldest university in Australia and Oceania...
.
Evans is also a member of Collegium International
Collegium International
International Ethical, Scientific and Political Collegium, also called Collegium International is a high-level group created in 2002.-Origin:...
, an organisation of leaders with political, scientific, and ethical expertise whose goal is to provide new approaches in overcoming the obstacles in the way of a peaceful, socially just and an economically sustainable world.
In July 2009, Evans participated at the United Nations General Assembly in an interactive dialogue on Responsibility To Protect (R2P). On 11 August, he joined the University of Melbourne as an honorary professorial fellow in the School of Social and Political Sciences.
Evans was appointed the Chancellor of the Australian National University
Australian National University
The Australian National University is a teaching and research university located in the Australian capital, Canberra.As of 2009, the ANU employs 3,945 administrative staff who teach approximately 10,000 undergraduates, and 7,500 postgraduate students...
effective 1 January 2010, and was installed as Chancellor by Governor-General
Governor-General of Australia
The Governor-General of the Commonwealth of Australia is the representative in Australia at federal/national level of the Australian monarch . He or she exercises the supreme executive power of the Commonwealth...
Quentin Bryce
Quentin Bryce
Quentin Bryce, AC, CVO is the 25th and current Governor-General of Australia and former Governor of Queensland....
at a ceremony on 18 February 2010, replacing Kim Beazley
Kim Beazley
In the October 1998 election, Labor polled a majority of the two-party vote and received the largest swing to a first-term opposition since 1934. However, due to the uneven nature of the swing, Labor came up eight seats short of making Beazley Prime Minister....
following his appointment as Ambassador to the United States.
Evans is a Member of the GLF Global Leadership Foundation.
Humanitarian initiatives
In 2009 Gareth Evans joined the project "Soldiers of Peace", a movie against all wars and for global peace.Personal life
Evans is married to Professor Merran Evans, of Monash UniversityMonash University
Monash University is a public university based in Melbourne, Victoria. It was founded in 1958 and is the second oldest university in the state. Monash is a member of Australia's Group of Eight and the ASAIHL....
, with whom he has two adult children.
Evans conducted a protracted extramarital affair with fellow senator Cheryl Kernot
Cheryl Kernot
Cheryl Kernot is an Australian politician, academic, and political activist. She was a member of the Australian Senate representing Queensland for the Australian Democrats from 1990 to 1997, and the fifth leader of the Australian Democrats from 1993 to 1997...
in the 1990s. Kernot was the leader of the Democrats
Australian Democrats
The Australian Democrats is an Australian political party espousing a socially liberal ideology. It was formed in 1977, by a merger of the Australia Party and the New LM, after principals of those minor parties secured the commitment of former Liberal minister Don Chipp, as a high profile leader...
when she spectacularly defected to join the Australian Labor Party
Australian Labor Party
The Australian Labor Party is an Australian political party. It has been the governing party of the Commonwealth of Australia since the 2007 federal election. Julia Gillard is the party's federal parliamentary leader and Prime Minister of Australia...
in 1997. While their affair was reportedly well-known within Canberra
Canberra
Canberra is the capital city of Australia. With a population of over 345,000, it is Australia's largest inland city and the eighth-largest city overall. The city is located at the northern end of the Australian Capital Territory , south-west of Sydney, and north-east of Melbourne...
political circles, it was first made public in 2002 by Laurie Oakes
Laurie Oakes
Laurie Oakes is an Australian political journalist, commentator, and media personality. Since 1966, he has worked in the Canberra Press Gallery, covering the Parliament of Australia and federal elections....
in his The Bulletin
The Bulletin
The Bulletin was an Australian weekly magazine that was published in Sydney from 1880 until January 2008. It was influential in Australian culture and politics from about 1890 until World War I, the period when it was identified with the "Bulletin school" of Australian literature. Its influence...
column.
Evans considers himself a humanist and was awarded the Australian Humanist of the Year Award in 1990 by the Council of Australian Humanist Societies
Council of Australian Humanist Societies
The Council of Australian Humanist Societies is the national umbrella organisation for Australian humanists. It is affiliated with the International Humanist and Ethical Union...
.
External links
- Gareth Evans personal website
- Profile at International Crisis GroupInternational Crisis GroupThe International Crisis Group is an international, non-profit, non-governmental organization whose mission is to prevent and resolve deadly conflicts around the world through field-based analyses and high-level advocacy.-History:...
, 2009 - Profile at the United NationsUnited NationsThe United Nations is an international organization whose stated aims are facilitating cooperation in international law, international security, economic development, social progress, human rights, and achievement of world peace...
, October 2003 - Column archive at Project SyndicateProject SyndicateProject Syndicate is an international not-for-profit newspaper syndicate and association of newspapers. It distributes commentaries and analysis by experts, activists, Nobel laureates, statesmen, economists, political thinkers, business leaders and academics to its member publications, and...