Barrie Cassidy

Barrie Cassidy (born 4 March 1947) is a veteran Australian political journalist, as well as a radio and television host and presenter and commentator

Cassidy was born in Wangaratta, Victoria and grew up in the Victorian town of Chiltern, attending Rutherglen High School. He had many brothers and an elder sister, and grew up with a love of football and sports.

Starting his career as a cadet on the Albury Border Morning Mail in 1969, he moved to the Shepparton News about a year later before being hired as a court reporter for the Melbourne Herald. Joining the ABC Network, he initially covered state politics. He moved to Canberra to become the ABC's federal political correspondent for radio and television in 1979.

In 1986, Cassidy was approached by the then Prime Minister, Bob Hawke, to become his personal press secretary. He remained in the job—which he has described as "the most rewarding and interesting period of my life"—until Paul Keating took over the leadership in 1991 following a challenge.

Moving to Washington, Cassidy worked as a correspondent for The Australian before returning to Australia to host the Last Shout and Meet the Press programs on Network Ten. Cassidy returned to the ABC to replace Paul Lyneham as host on The 7.30 Report, before he and his wife, Heather Ewart, were sent to Brussels as European correspondents.

In 2010, Cassidy wrote The Party Thieves: The Real Story of the 2010 Election (Melbourne University Press, October 2010, ISBN 978-0-522-85780-1), which one reviewer called "the standard text on precisely what happened in 2010."

Cassidy has hosted the Sunday morning political discussion show Insiders since its inception in 2001. He formerly hosted the sports panel show Offsiders, but he stepped down from this role to write The Party Thieves, and at the end of the 2013 season left the program entirely. He has also hosted the morning show ABC News Breakfast.

Cassidy appeared as himself in the first episode of the 1998 Australia television series The Games. He has a keen interest in horseracing, and is a devout fan of Collingwood in the Australian Football League. Cassidy is also a keen jogger, running almost every day.

Cassidy worked as Labor Prime Minister Bob Hawke's press secretary from 1986 to 1991. In 2015, he welcomed the replacement of Tony Abbott as Prime Minister and leader of the Liberal Party by the less conservative Malcolm Turnbull. After a speech in which former-Prime Minister Abbott urged caution on asylum seeker policy to European leaders, Cassidy described Abbott's creed as "a fundamental rejection of negotiation and compromise, and a refusal to allow compassion to get in the way of a nation's self-interest." He described the arrival of Turnbull in office as "a new and positive era". He describes Abbott's policy disagreements with Turnbull following his replacement as "vindictive".

Cassidy advocated against the election of Republican Donald Trump in the United States presidential election, 2016 and dismissed his chances of election. When US voters went to the polls, Cassidy tweeted: "Trump cannot win. The nightmare is over."

Cassidy supports same-sex marriage.