Editing Gavan O'Connor (section)

===Politics===
He contested the [[1984 Corangamite by-election]] but was unsuccessful as it was a safe Liberal seat.  He won the seat of [[Division of Corio|Corio]] at the [[1993 Australian federal election|1993 federal election]].

He became Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Opposition ([[Kim Beazley]]) from 1996 to 1998 and Member of the Opposition Shadow Ministry from October 1998. He was Shadow Minister for Agriculture and Fisheries from December 2003 until 2007 when he was dropped in a shadow cabinet reshuffle by incoming leader [[Kevin Rudd]].<ref name=aph/>

O'Connor lost his endorsement as the ALP candidate for Corio to [[Richard Marles]] in March 2007. On 18 October the same year, he announced he would run as an independent at the [[2007 Australian federal election|2007 election]],<ref name=geelongadv>{{cite web
  | title =Gavan O'Connor to run as an independent
  | publisher =[[Geelong Advertiser]]
  | work=Geelong Advertiser website
  | url =http://www.geelongadvertiser.com.au/article/2007/10/18/7975_news.html
  | accessdate = 2007-10-18 }}</ref> and achieved 12.7 percent of the vote, but lost to Marles.