Peta Credlin

Peta Credlin was born to Len and Brenda Credlin in the small Victorian country town of Wycheproof. Her family moved closer to Geelong, and she attended Sacred Heart College, where she was a member of the debating team and elected Deputy School Captain in her second year. She graduated with a Bachelor of Laws from the University of Melbourne with a concentration in constitutional law, politics and history in 1998. At university Credlin resided at Newman College, won a number of prizes and awards, and was a member and national finalist of the 1995 Philip C. Jessup International Law Moot Court Competition Team. After graduation, she was admitted as a barrister and solicitor in Victoria, and applied for a job as a political staffer with Liberal Senator Kay Patterson in 1999.[4]

She obtained a Graduate Diploma in Legal Practice with Distinction from the Australian National University (ANU) in 2010, where she won the ACT Law Society Prize for the top student of 2009. She is currently completing a Master of Laws degree at the ANU.

After working for several years on Patterson's staff, Credlin moved to become an adviser to Senator Richard Alston, the Minister for Communications in the Howard Government.[4] She then left politics, and worked for three years as public relations manager for Racing Victoria. Tired of the commute between Melbourne and Canberra, where her husband Brian Loughnane was based, Credlin returned to her career as a political staffer, working for senators Robert Hill and Helen Coonan.[4]

When the Howard Government was defeated at the 2007 federal election, Credlin moved to Sydney to work at the Jockey Club until she was asked by Brendan Nelson, who had been elected federal Liberal leader and Leader of the Opposition, to join his staff as a senior adviser. When Malcolm Turnbull challenged Nelson for the party leadership, Nelson counselled her to join Turnbull's team, and she was appointed as deputy chief of staff in his office. When Turnbull himself was challenged and defeated by Tony Abbott in December 2009, Credlin joined Abbott's staff as chief of staff.[4] She rose to prominence when the Coalition won the 2013 federal election and she became Chief of Staff to the Prime Minister.[5][6][7][8] She continued in that role until the Liberal Party leadership ballot of 14 September 2015, in which Abbott was defeated and replaced as leader by Malcolm Turnbull.

Credlin became a Sky News Australia contributor in May 2016,[9][10] with her first appearance on 7 May 2016 during a special weekend edition of PM Agenda.[11] She began co-hosting a weekly primetime program Credlin & Keneally from 16 November 2016 until 17 May 2017.[12] Credlin hosts her own show Peta Credlin each weeknight on Sky News Australia. As a journalist and political commentator, Credlin has come under fire for her perceived partisanship. Crikey's Paula Matthews wrote in February 2017 that Credlin's support for Tony Abbott and criticism of then-prime minister Malcolm Turnbull "takes media partisanship to its extreme" and represents "the channelling of a politician directly through a media mouthpiece".[13]

Credlin has been an ardent critic of the Victorian government response to the COVID-19 pandemic, and particularly of the Victorian premier Daniel Andrews. Credlin has been lauded by fellow Sky News hosts for her aggressive questioning of Andrews during his daily press conferences during the pandemic.[14] The Age has been more circumspect about Credlin's criticisms of Andrews, describing her appearances at Andrews' press conferences as "a mixture of overt political partisanship interlaced with some good journalism."[15] In December 2020, Credlin was mocked in the Australian media for apparently contending on Sky News that Daniel Andrews was using "mind control" to maintain his popularity.[16]

In 2020, Credlin caused controversy after claiming in a Sky News broadcast that South Sudanese Australians were not following government measures intended to stop the spread of COVID-19 due to problems with language proficiency, and that “poorly-assimilated" South Sudanese migrants had ignored restrictions in an “end-of-Ramadan feast”.[17] Credlin's statement was harshly criticized in the media, with SBS News noting that the vast majority of South Sudanese people are actually Christians.[18] The Conversation's Denis Muller described Credlin's comments as "a toxic mixture of vitriol and ignorance".[19] Crikey's Charlie Lewis described the broadcast as "racist" and "fact-free", and linked it to a pattern of racially-charged reporting on Sky,[20] while The Conversation's Janak Rogers perceived it as illustrative of a broader problem of lack of ethnic diversity in Australian media.[21] Credlin subsequently made an on-air apology to the South Sudanese community.[22]

Credlin has been married to Brian Loughnane, a former federal director of the Liberal Party of Australia, since December 2002. They had worked together in the Victorian office of the Liberal Party during the campaign for the 2001 federal election.[23]

In 2013, Credlin pleaded guilty to a drink driving offence, recording a blood alcohol level of 0.075 but did not have a conviction recorded against her.[24][25]

In November 2020, Credlin published an article in the conservative, Murdoch-owned Herald Sun which equated Victoria's Covid-19 lockdown with war crimes committed by the Australian SAS.[26]

• Legge, Kate; Nestel, Christine (24 July 2013). "The queen of no" (video). The Australian Magazine.