Background
Tony Burke was educated at Regina Coeli, then at St Patrick's College, Strathfield, where he was Vice-Captain, and the University of Sydney, where he graduated in arts and law. An accomplished debater, he was awarded the Martin Sorensen award for best speaker at the Australasian Intervarsity Debating Championships in 1995.
He was a founding director of Aticus Pty Ltd, an advocacy training business across Australia and Asia.
From 1997 until 2003, Burke worked as an organiser for the Shop, Distributive and Allied Employees' Association.
On 22 March 2003, he was elected to the New South Wales Legislative Council. He chaired the NSW State Development Committee, conducting inquiries into ports infrastructure, and science and its commercialisation. Burke resigned from the NSW state parliament on 24 June 2004 to campaign for the federal parliament division of Watson. He successfully gained the seat at the 2004 federal election.
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“Silence is the universal refuge, the sequel to all dull discourses and all foolish acts, a balm to our every chagrin, as welcome after satiety as after disappointment; that background which the painter may not daub, be he master or bungler, and which, however awkward a figure we may have made in the foreground, remains ever our inviolable asylum, where no indignity can assail, no personality can disturb us.”
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