Tony Staley

Anthony Allan (Tony) Staley, AO (born 15 May 1939) is an Australian politician and businessman.

Staley was educated at Scotch College, Melbourne. He was the Member for Chisholm from 1970 to 1980 and was Minister for the Capital Territory from February 1976 to December 1977 in the Fraser Government and then Minister for Post and Telecommunications until his retirement from Parliament.

He later served as Federal President of the Liberal Party of Australia. In May 1994 when Liberal Leader John Hewson called a leadership spill, Staley as Liberal President caused controversy when he withdrew his support for Hewson. The controversy was due to the expectation that the organisational wing of the party which Staley was in charge of as President did not interfere with the parliamentary party in selecting the leader. In the resulting leadership spill Hewson was ousted by Alexander Downer but it was expected that Staley would not have survived as party president if Hewson had won the spill.

He currently serves on several business and community boards and committees, including:

• Chairman of the Council of the Telecommunications Industry Ombudsman Scheme
• Chairman of the Council of the National Museum of Australia
• President of the Governing Board of Australian Photonics Cooperative Research Centre
• Independent Chair of the .au Domain Administration (auDA)

In 1990 he was involved in a serious road accident, which left him needing to use calipers to walk.