birth_place title party birth_date term_start article_title term_end name
queenstown , tasmania senator for tasmania labor -lrb- 2002 & ndash ; 05 -rrb- -lrb- 1993 & ndash ; 2002 -rrb- independent 8 january 1952 1 july 1993 shayne murphy
 30 june 2005 shayne murphy
shayne murphy

shayne michael murphy -lrb- born 8 january 1952 -rrb- , australian politician , was a member of the australian senate , representing tasmania , from 1993 to 2005 .
he represented the australian labor party from his election until 2001 , when he left the party and became an independent .
murphy was born in queenstown , tasmania , and became a shearer .
he became involved with the union movement , rising to become state secretary of the tasmanian branch of the construction , forestry , mining and energy union .
he was also the secretary of the alp 's industry policy committee in tasmania .
he attributed his resignation from the alp to their policies on logging .
in the 2001-04 parliament , murphy shared the balance of power with senators len harris , brian harradine and meg lees , who left the australian democrats in 2002 .
this meant that the government could pass legislation through the senate only by winning the support of these senators .
murphy often voted with the government to pass key pieces of legislation .
an example of this was education minister brendan nelson 's higher education reforms , which allowed universities to increase fees .
murphy did , however , vote down several pieces of government legislation ; most notably when , in march 2004 , murphy joined with harradine to block the full privatisation of two-thirds state-owned telecommunications company telstra .
murphy was defeated at the 2004 election .
his term expired on 30 june 2005 .
