Early years

Brown joined the Liberal Party in 1955, at the age of 15. He was first elected to the House of Representatives in 1969, standing in the Division of Diamond Valley. He was 29 years old at the time, making him the Coalition's youngest MP. He was defeated by the Labor candidate David McKenzie in 1972, and returned to his legal practice, focusing primarily on industrial law. Brown reclaimed Diamond Valley at the 1975 election in a rematch against McKenzie.^[2] In 1980, he spent several weeks in Zimbabwe as the head of a team of Australian observers at the 1980 elections.^[3]

Fraser government

In April 1981, Brown was elevated to the ministry as Minister for Employment and Youth Affairs in the Fraser government.^[4] He was briefly appointed Minister for Business and Consumer Affairs following the forced resignation of John Moore in April 1982. His major act in that portfolio was the announcement of an inquiry into the "colour-television affair" which had led to the resignations of Moore and Michael MacKellar.^[5] The following month Brown was promoted to cabinet as Minister for Communications. He held that position until the Fraser government was defeated at the 1983 election; he again lost the seat of Diamond Valley to a Labor candidate, in this case, Peter Staples.^[6]

Opposition

At the early 1984 election, Brown re-entered parliament as the member for the newly created Division of Menzies. After the election he was appointed to Andrew Peacock's shadow cabinet as Shadow Attorney-General. In September 1985, Brown was elected deputy leader of the Liberal Party and thus Deputy Leader of the Opposition, roles which had been vacated by John Howard when he replaced Peacock as party leader. He defeated eleven other candidates for the position, finishing with 36 out of 70 votes on the final ballot compared with fifteen for Ian Macphee, eleven for John Moore, and eight for Peter Shack.^[7] In December 1985, Brown acted as party leader for two weeks while Howard recovered from an ear operation. However, National Party leader Ian Sinclair was the acting leader of the opposition during that time.^[8] Brown served as Howard's deputy until July 1987, when a leadership spill was called in the aftermath of the party's defeat at the 1987 election. After several other candidates emerged, he did not recontest the position and was replaced by Andrew Peacock (an unsuccessful challenger for the leadership against Howard).^[9]

Peter Shack, who was an unsuccessful candidate to replace Brown as deputy, made a criticism of Brown as he stated that coming after the Liberals' defeat at the recent 1987 election, its third consecutive defeat, the Liberal Party needed a deputy leader who could give "visible and effective political and parliamentary support to the leader".^[10]

Brown remained a Coalition frontbencher – under Howard, Peacock, and John Hewson – until his unexpected resignation from parliament in February 1991. He returned to his law practice. The resulting by-election was won by the Liberal candidate Kevin Andrews.^[11]