Barry Cunningham (politician)

Barry Cunningham
Member of the Australian Parliament for McMillan
In office 18 October 1980 – 24 March 1990
Preceded by	Barry Simon
Succeeded by	John Riggall
In office 13 March 1993 – 2 March 1996
Preceded by	John Riggall
Succeeded by	Russell Broadbent
Personal details
Born	(1939-10-26)26 October 1939 Pakenham, Victoria, Australia
Died	12 September 2018(2018-09-12) (aged 78) Warragul, Victoria, Australia
Political party	Australian Labor Party
Occupation	Farmer

Barry Thomas Cunningham (26 October 1939 – 12 September 2018) was an Australian politician. Born in Pakenham, Victoria, he was a dairy and potato farmer and an agricultural contractor before entering politics. In 1980, he was elected to the Australian House of Representatives as the Labor member for McMillan, defeating Barry Simon of the Liberal Party, who had been deprived of Democratic Labor Party preferences due to his views on abortion. He was defeated in 1990 but was re-elected in 1993, before being defeated again in 1996.

In 2015, Cunningham and three other former MPs brought a case before the High Court of Australia, purporting that reductions to their retirement allowances and limitations on the number of "domestic return trips per year" under the Members of Parliament (Life Gold Pass) Act 2002 was unconstitutional under S51(xxxi) of the Constitution of Australia. They lost the case in 2016, with the court finding that Parliament was entitled to vary the terms of allowances. He died in 2018.