Lynton Crosby moves from South Australia politics to Australian federal/UK strategist for conservative causes
A graduate of South Australian Liberal party politcs, stratgeist Lynton Crosby helped Boris Johnson on his way to becoming British prime minister by winning the 2008 election for London mayor.
Lynton Crosby, son of a cereal farmer at Kadina on South Australia’s Yorke Peninsula, became known as a "master of the dark political arts", "the Wizard of Oz", and "the Australian Karl Rove” as election strategist for conservative parties in the United Kingdom and other countries.
An ultra conservative, Crosby previously oversaw the Liberal campaigns for the 1996, 1998, 2001 and 2004 Australian federal elections, with The Age in Melbourne calling him “one of the most powerful and influential figures in the nation."
Crosby joined the South Australian Young Liberals in 1975 and became their president while completing his studies in economics at Adelaide University. Crosby started his career in 1976 as a market analyst with Golden Fleece Petroleum. He moved into politics as a research assistant in 1978 for South Australian senator and, from 1980, executive assistant to state education and Aboriginal affairs minister Harold Allison.
Crosby stood as Liberal candidate for the South Australian House of Assembly seat of Norwood in 1982, suffering a 9.2% swing against him as against a 5.9% state-wide swing. Crosby worked in South Australian corporate affairs for Elders and oil and gas giant Santos before becoming executive assistant to Legislative Council Liberal opposition leader Martin Cameron from 1986 to 1991 when he became state director for the Queensland division of the Liberal Party and, in 1994, the party's deputy federal director. He replaced federal director Andrew Robb in 1997. Crosby served as campaign director for federal elections from 1996 to 2004 including the 1998 win with marginal seats targeted by Crosby.
In 2002, Crosby set up an election consulting firm, the Crosby Textor Group (later C|T Group), with Mark Textor and left his position with the Liberal Party. Crosby first ventured into overseas politics at the 2005 United Kingdom general election where he ran the Conservative Party’s unsuccessful campaign. In 2008, he helped elect Boris Johnson as London mayor, increasing the Conservative first-preference vote from 29% to 43%.
In 2013, after the British government rejected a plan to removed branding from cigarette packets, British prime minister David Cameron was urged by Liberal Democrat members of the governing coalition to sack Crosby as his chief election strategist because of his link to the tobacco industry. Crosby was credited with masterminding the Conservative party’s first outright win for more than 30 years and, in 2015, received a knighthood for his political services, to go with his 2005 Order of Australia (AO) for services to politics.
Crosby also was linked as advisor to conservative political parties in Canada, New Zealand and Sri Lanka as well as a consultant for Libertas, a pan-European party opposed to the Treaty of Lisbon. He was a background player in the leadership manoeuvrings between British prime ministers Teresa May and Boris Johnson.
Since the mid-2000s, Crosby’s C|T Group operations have expanded dramatically with offices in the financial and political power centres of London, Washington, Dubai, Hong Kong and Mumbai. In Washington, its clients included giant US defence company General Dynamics, whose subsidiary, Electric Boat, was the lead contractor for the United States navy’s fleet of nuclear-powered submarines — and a key player in the AUKUS (Australia United Kingdom United States) agreement made under Australian prime minister Scott Morrison.
