Career
Brady graduated with an honours degree in international relations at the Australian National University and joined the Department of Foreign Affairs in 1982 as a graduate foreign service officer. Promoted in 1985 to the Office of Security and Intelligence Coordination in the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet, he was subsequently foreign policy adviser to two Leaders of the Opposition. From 1990 - 1991 he was Counsellor and Chargé d'Affaires at the Australian Embassy in Dublin.
From 1991-1996 he was head of the Guest of Government program in the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet. On two later occasions he was seconded from the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) to work for the Prime Minister as Senior Adviser (Government).
In December 1998 he was appointed Ambassador to Sweden with non-resident accreditation to Denmark, Norway, Finland, Iceland, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. He was Australia's Representative at three consecutive high level international conferences on combating intolerance and discrimination, held in Stockholm (2000–03). In 2000 he headed Australia's delegation to the Plurilateral War Crimes Conference in Riga, Latvia.
In February 1999 he made headlines as Australia's and the world's first openly gay ambassador when he formally presented his partner Peter Stephens to Queen Margrethe II of Denmark. Stephens's passport was initially endorsed "Bearer is a member of the domestic household of the Ambassador", until Brady, who had been in a committed relationship with Stephens since 1982, insisted that it be changed.
In February 2004, he was appointed Ambassador to the Netherlands. He was instrumental in coordinating arrangements with the Dutch government for Australia's joint military operation in Afghanistan which, according to Australian Chief of the Defence Force, Air Chief Marshal Angus Houston, "he facilitated brilliantly". Brady's diplomatic skills and remarkable and extensive network of connections were widely acknowledged.
In December 2007 he led Australia's delegation to the International Criminal Court's Assembly of State Parties Conference at the UN in New York.
He served as Australia's Permanent Representative to the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons in The Hague. In addition, he had responsibility for Australia's relationships with all international legal institutions based in The Hague. These included the International Court of Justice (ICJ), the International Criminal Court (ICC), the Permanent Court of Arbitration (PCA) and the International International Court for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY). On his return to Australia in March 2008 he was appointed Chief of Protocol in DFAT.
On 5 September 2008, Stephen Brady was appointed Official Secretary to the Governor-General of Australia.
Read more about this topic: Stephen Brady
Famous quotes containing the word career:
“They want to play at being mothers. So let them. Expressing tenderness in their own way will not prevent girls from enjoying a successful career in the future; indeed, the ability to nurture is as valuable a skill in the workplace as the ability to lead.”
—Anne Roiphe (20th century)
“Each of the professions means a prejudice. The necessity for a career forces every one to take sides. We live in the age of the overworked, and the under-educated; the age in which people are so industrious that they become absolutely stupid.”
—Oscar Wilde (1854–1900)
“John Brown’s career for the last six weeks of his life was meteor-like, flashing through the darkness in which we live. I know of nothing so miraculous in our history.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)