BOWEN
Christopher

• 1. Political positions

Christopher Eyles Guy Bowen is an Australian politician and is the current Minister for Climate Change and Energy since June 2022. He is a member of the Australian Labor Party (ALP) and was first elected to parliament at the 2004 federal election. He held ministerial office in the Rudd and Gillard Governments from 2007 to 2013 and has been a senior member of shadow cabinet from 2013 to 2022.

Bowen served on the Fairfield City Council from 1995 to 2004, including a term as mayor. He was elected to the House of Representatives in 2004, holding the seats of Prospect and McMahon (from 2010). Bowen was added to Kevin Rudd's shadow ministry in 2006, and following the ALP's victory at the 2007 election served variously as Assistant Treasurer (2007–2009), Minister for Competition Policy and Consumer Affairs (2007–2009), Financial Services, Superannuation and Corporate Law (2009–2010), Human Services (2009–2010), Immigration and Citizenship (2010–2013), Tertiary Education, Skills, Science and Research (2013), Small Business (2013), and Treasurer (2013).

After the ALP's defeat at the 2013 election, Bowen served briefly as the interim leader of the ALP and acting leader of the opposition. He was the shadow treasurer under Bill Shorten from 2013 to 2019. After the 2019 election, he became a candidate to succeed Shorten as party leader but eventually withdrew in favour of Anthony Albanese. He is regarded as a senior figure in the Labor Right faction.

Political positions

Bowen supports same-sex marriage. Notably in 2017, his Division of McMahon had the 3rd highest percentage of "No" responses in the Australian Marriage Law Postal Survey, with 64.9% of the electorate's respondents to the survey responding "No".

Bowen has supported Foreign Minister Marise Payne's call for an independent global inquiry into the origins of the COVID-19 pandemic including China's handling of the initial outbreak in Wuhan.