Victor Perton
Victor Perton (born December 2, 1958) is an Australian politician. He has been a member of the Victorian Legislative Assembly since 1988, representing the electorate of Doncaster for the Liberal Party of Australia. He is the current Shadow Minister for Education, and one of the most visible members of the state opposition.
Perton was raised in Melbourne and studied economics and law at Monash University. He joined the Liberal Party in 1976 and served in various positions in his local party branch over the next decade. He graduated from university in 1982, and began practicing as a barrister and solicitor, as well as running his own retail business. Perton subsequently gained admission to practice law in five states and in 1987, gained a Diploma of Chinese Law in 1987 from Peking University in the People's Republic of China. He remained active within the Liberal Party after graduating, serving in its state policy assembly, and in 1988, stood as the Liberal candidate in the safe Liberal seat of Doncaster. He was easily elected, but spent the next decade on the backbenches, with only committee assignments and a brief stint as a parliamentary secretary to his name.
After more than a decade as a backbencher, Perton finally received a break in 1999, when the surprise defeat of Jeff Kennett's Liberal government sparked a major reshuffle of the now-shadow ministry. New Opposition Leader Denis Napthine appointed Perton as his Shadow Minister for Conservation and Environment and Multimedia, later shifting him from the latter to technology and innovation. Perton performed reasonably well in these positions, and in August 2002, when Robert Doyle (Napthine's successor as leader) embarked on a major reshuffle in a last-ditch bid to boost the party's flagging fortunes before the state election due late that year, he was promoted to Shadow Attorney-General while also holding the positions of Shadow Minister for Consumer Affairs, Shadow Minister for Aboriginal Affairs and Shadow Minister for Technology and Innovation..
Doyle's attempt to prevent a landslide defeat failed, and the party suffered the worst loss in its history, with several Shadow Ministers losing their seats, and Perton coming very close to losing his own. In the aftermath of the defeat, Perton was promoted to Shadow Minister of Education. He regularly appears in the media with vocal criticism of the government, and remains among the opposition's most high-profile members.
Within the spectrum of Liberal Party thought, Perton is regarded as a "small-l liberal" [1], a position more common in the Victorian Liberal Party than the more agressively right-wing New South Wales branch.
In February 2006, Perton announced that he would not contest the next election and relinquished his shadow ministry.
Perton's wife Jane is a businesswoman. They have a son, Ted, born in 2005[2].