Tudge was born on 24 February 1971 in Pakenham, Victoria.[3] His parents were veterinarians who met at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland and arrived in Australia as Ten Pound Poms.[4] He was born a British citizen by descent, but renounced his dual citizenship before standing for parliament in 2010. His mother was born in Scotland and his father in England, while his maternal grandfather was born in Canada.[5]
In 2002, Tudge became a senior adviser to federal education minister Brendan Nelson. He later worked for foreign minister Alexander Downer.[3][4] Tudge later rejoined the Cape York Institute as deputy director from 2006 to 2009.[3] He was a founding board member of Teach For Australia, established in 2009 by his former BCG colleague Melodie Potts Rosevear.[10][11] He subsequently ran his own policy advisory firm from 2009 until his election to parliament.[12]
Political career
Tudge joined the Liberal Party in 2002 and was the convenor of its Education Policy Forum.[3] In September 2009, he won preselection for the Division of Aston as one of 11 candidates, defeating Neil Angus on the final ballot.[13] He retained Aston for the Liberals at the 2010 federal election, succeeding the retiring MP Chris Pearce.[14]
Following a cabinet reshuffle, Tudge was appointed Minister for Citizenship and Multicultural Affairs in December 2017.[3] During the 2018 Liberal leadership spills, he was one of a number of ministers to tender their resignation to Turnbull; however, his was not immediately accepted.[21] He reportedly voted for Peter Dutton against Scott Morrison in the second vote.[22]
In 2022, Prime Minister Scott Morrison and the LNP were voted out at the 2022 Australian federal election. During the election, Tudge had a 7-point[clarification needed] two-party preferred swing against him, but still managed to hold the seat by 5 points.[25] The election marked the second time since Tudge was elected that the Liberals sat in opposition. Following the election, Tudge was named in the Shadow Cabinet as the Shadow Minister of Education under the leadership of Peter Dutton but was exiled due to the on-going inquiry into the Robodebt scheme.[26][27]
Tudge announced his forthcoming resignation in parliament on 9 February 2023,[1] and submitted his resignation on 17 February 2023.[28]
Controversies
In June 2017, Tudge, and Liberal Party colleagues Greg Hunt and Michael Sukkar, faced the possibility of being prosecuted for contempt of court after they made public statements criticising the sentencing decisions of two senior judges while the government was awaiting their ruling on a related appeal.[29][30] They avoided prosecution by, eventually, making an unconditional apology to the Victorian Court of Appeal.[31][32][33] Conviction could have resulted in their expulsion from the parliament under Constitution s 44(ii) and, as a result, the government losing its one-seat majority in the House of Representatives.
Tudge faced controversy for his role in and defence of the Robodebt scheme. Responding to numerous reports of incorrect debt notices in 2017, Tudge stated "The system is working and we will continue with that system". Robodebt was later ruled to be unlawful and 470,000 debts raised under the scheme were refunded.[34][35]
In March 2020, the Administrative Appeals Tribunal ordered that an Afghan asylum seeker who had previously been a part of the Afghan National Army be granted a temporary protection visa. Tudge, who was Acting Immigration Minister at the time,[24] instantly appealed the AAT's decision in the Federal Court, which failed. However, during the six-day appeal process, the asylum seeker had been kept in the detention centre. Six months later, the Federal Court found that Tudge had "engaged in conduct which can only be described as criminal" and had deprived the asylum seeker of his liberty, which prompted calls for Tudge's resignation.[36][37][38] That decision was itself set aside on appeal, and the matter referred back to a differently constituted sitting of the Administrative Appeals Tribunal.[39]
Affair and bullying allegations
In November 2020, Tudge's former press secretary Rachelle Miller revealed on a broadcast of Four Corners that they had engaged in an affair.[40] Tudge subsequently released a statement on Facebook confirming the affair and that it led to the end of his marriage.[41] In the same broadcast, Miller described Tudge's opposition to same-sex marriage, based on his support for "traditional" marriage, as hypocritical.[40] She later also accused him of bullying and intimidation,[42] saying in a complaint: "He would often ask me to go to dinner or drinks at the end of a long day on the road. I often felt like I didn’t have much choice or couldn’t say no because he was my boss".[43] After further allegations of abuse by Miller in December 2021, Tudge stood aside from the ministry on 2 December while the claims were investigated.[44] In March 2022, the review cleared Tudge of breaking any rules. Despite the review being in his favour, Tudge decided not to return to the cabinet and said he would resigned formally as minister.[45]
Tudge and his wife, Teri Etchells, had three children. Their 20-year relationship ended in 2017, a year after the birth of their third child,[4] as a result of Tudge's extramarital affair.[41]
^Tapani Rinta-Kahila et al, 'Algorithmic decision-making and system destructiveness: A case of automatic debt recovery' (2022) 31(3) European Journal of Information Systems 325.
.jpg)
