Stephen Brady

Stephen Brady is an Australian career diplomat. Since September 2008 he has been the Official Secretary to the Governor-General of Australia, Ms Quentin Bryce.

Stephen Brady first became a diplomat in 1982. He has served as Ambassador to Sweden with non-resident accreditation as Ambassador to Denmark, Norway, Finland, Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania. He made headlines as Australia’s first openly gay ambassador when he formally presented his same-sex partner Peter Stephens to Queen Margrethe II of Denmark in 1999. He was Australia's Permanent Representative to the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons in The Hague. Until March 2008 he served as Ambassador to the Netherlands.

On two occasions he was seconded from the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) to work in then Prime Minister John Howard's office as Senior Adviser (Government). He has also worked in the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet where from 1991-1996 he was responsible for the official Guest of Government program. Immediately prior to his appointment as Official Secretary, he was Chief of Protocol in DFAT.

He is a long-time friend of the current Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, himself a former diplomat, and his partner Peter Stephens is an adviser to Rudd.

On 5 September 2008 Stephen Brady replaced Malcolm Hazell as Official Secretary to the new Governor-General of Australia, Quentin Bryce. Mr Hazell had served Ms Bryce’s two predecessors, Major General Michael Jeffery and Archbishop Peter Hollingworth, and is described as “resolutely non-partisan” and his service as “exemplary”. When Mr Hazell was told that after five years he would not be kept on as official secretary, the federal Opposition threatened to raise his removal in parliament. Mr Rudd defended Ms Bryce's decision as an incoming governor-general's right to appoint a new official secretary. [Hello You're Fired, The Courier-Mail, p.1, 1 August 2008; Governor-General can pick her own staff, Herald-Sun, 1 August 2008 ]

ources

* [http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,,24242308-2702,00.html "Diplomat with family ties gets $225,000 job", The Australian, 26 August 2008]
* [http://www.starobserver.com.au/news/2008/09/03/queens-woman-gets-a-new-man/1510 "Queen’s woman gets a new man", Sydney Star Observer, 3 September 2008]