Mark Bishop

Mark was born and raised in South Australia and graduated with a Bachelor Of Law (LLB) from the University of Adelaide in 1982 and gained a Masters of Public Administration (MPA) from Harvard in 1994.

Mark shifted to Perth, Western Australia in 1983 and held senior positions in the Australian Labor Party and the trade union movement, principally as Secretary of the Shop Distributive and Allied Employees Union.

In 1996 Mark entered politics as a Senator and has been a member of the Senate since that time.

From 1988 until2006 Mark held a number of positions on the front bench of the Australian Labor Party including Parliamentary Secretary representing the Shadow Minister for Communications (1998 – 2001); Shadow Minister for Veterans’ Affairs (2001 – 2005) and Shadow Minister for Customs (2003 – 2004); and Shadow Minister for Defence Industry, Procurement and Personnel (2005 – 2006).

From the election of the Labor government in 2007 Mark was elected Chair of the Senate Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Select Committee and holds positions on a number of other defence/foreign affairs/public accounts and audit committees. He is also Deputy Chair of the Senate Scrutiny of Bills Committee.
 
In his time in parliament Mark has shown continuing policy interest in veterans’ affairs, defence and foreign affairs matters and has chaired a number of authoritative reports on a range of defence matters.

He has a particular interest in defence policy personnel and procurement areas.

Mark is the Duty Senator for the electorates of Swan, Pearce and Tangney.