Simon Crean

Simon Findlay Crean (26 February 1949 – 25 June 2023) was an Australian politician and trade unionist. He was the leader of the Australian Labor Party (ALP) and leader of the opposition from 2001 to 2003. He represented the seat of Hotham in the House of Representatives from 1990 to 2013 and was a cabinet minister in the Hawke, Keating, Rudd and Gillard governments.

Crean was born in Melbourne, the son of Frank Crean who was deputy prime minister under Gough Whitlam. He studied law and economics at Monash University and was involved in the trade union movement from a young age, becoming general secretary of the Storemen and Packers' Union in 1979. He was elected vice-president of the Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU) in 1981 and president in 1985. Crean stood down from this role upon his election to parliament at the 1990 federal election, and was immediately appointed Minister for Science and Technology in the Hawke government. He held several other ministerial posts until Labor's defeat at the 1996 election.

Following Labor's 1998 election defeat, Crean was elected deputy leader of the ALP under Kim Beazley, replacing Gareth Evans. He was elected unopposed to succeed Beazley as party leader following further defeat at the 2001 election, becoming leader of the opposition. In 2003, he led Labor's opposition to the invasion of Iraq. Despite initial enthusiasm for his leadership, Crean struggled in opinion polling, and in June 2003 Beazley challenged him for the leadership. Although Crean won comfortably, speculation about his leadership only intensified, and in November 2003 he announced that he would resign, and was replaced by his shadow treasurer Mark Latham.

Despite losing the leadership, Crean remained a senior figure within the Labor Party, and returned to cabinet as Minister for Trade when Labor won the 2007 election. Crean supported Julia Gillard in her leadership challenge to Kevin Rudd in June 2010, and remained in the Cabinet after she was successful. Although he continued to support Gillard through the leadership spill in February 2012, in March 2013 he announced that he was switching support to Rudd, sparking another leadership spill; Gillard sacked him from the Cabinet in response. When Rudd eventually did return as prime minister at the leadership spill in June 2013, Crean ran unsuccessfully to return to the role of deputy leader; he subsequently announced his decision to retire from politics at the 2013 election.