Winter was born in Queenstown on Tasmania’s West Coast where his father Murray worked as a miner for the Mount Lyell Mining and Railway Company. Winter’s parents met in Queenstown where his mother Margaret worked as a nurse at the Queenstown hospital. Margaret Winter is a descendant of William and Susanna Powell who, after arriving in Tasmania around 1850, married and settled in Deloraine. Their son Francis moved to Queenstown in 1896 to work at Mount Lyell, before his son, and Winter’s grandfather Les also worked at Mount Lyell.
The family moved to Hobart when Dean was five.
He suffered from a serious stutter as a child. The impairment was so bad his family travelled to Brisbane to seek specialist help, living in a caravan for six weeks.[3]
Winter’s first job at the age of 15 was working as a service station attendant after being hired by Liberal Minister Nic Street’s father. He later worked as a deli assistant at Woolworths.[4]
Pre-parliamentary career
Winter was hired as an electorate officer for Labor MP and Tasmanian Treasurer Michael Aird. He then worked in the Tasmanian Government Media Office before taking a role with Federal Labor MP Julie Collins.[5]
He subsequently became the Chief Executive Officer of TasICT, the peak body representing Tasmania's ICT sector. This coincided with the National Broadband Network rollout in Tasmania which subsequently became an issue in Tasmania at the 2013 Australian federal election. Winter and TasICT argued the Tasmanian rollout should be completed using Fibre to the Premises (FttP) technology, while the Coalition had already announced it would use a mix of technologies, including Fibre to the Node (FttN), which they said would be easier and more affordable to deploy.[6]
Following an unsuccessful candidacy for the Electoral division of Hobart at the 2012 Tasmanian Legislative Council periodic election, Winter successfully contested the Kingborough Council election for the position of Councillor in 2014. The Labor Left faction attempted to censure Winter later in 2018, due to comments Winter made around Kingborough Council's behaviour being "authoritarian" in regards to an overturned decision that was made to destroy a dog, which were interpreted as anti-worker. Winter said that his criticism was aimed "at the leadership of council, not its staff". The censure attempt was unsuccessful, with White intervening to stop the issue from being addressed at the party conference.[7] Winter ultimately won the Kingborough mayoral election, held later that year, with 61.93% of the vote becoming youngest Kingsborough Mayor ever.[8]
At the 2021 Tasmanian state election, Winter was endorsed as one of the Labor candidates. He was initially denied preselection in the seat of Franklin for the 2021 Tasmanian state election, with the Labor Left rumoured to be opposed to him becoming a candidate. Former Labor premier David Bartlett labelled Winter an "outstanding candidate", and that by not preselecting him, Labor was effectively conceding the election.[9] Former Premiers Paul Lennon[10] and Lara Giddings[11] also expressed support for his candidacy.
Winter ended up being preselected as the sixth candidate for Franklin, following intervention from the party's national executive.[12] Winter was ultimately elected as one of two Labor MPs in Franklin, beating incumbent MP Alison Standen, and outperforming then-Labor MP David O'Byrne.[13]
On becoming Leader, Winter announced that the Tasmanian Labor party would focus on policies that create and protect jobs.[15] He also changed the party’s position on the controversial Macquarie Point Stadium project, saying that “A stadium will mean thousands of jobs in construction, including hundreds of apprenticeships."[16]
Personal life
Winter married his wife, Allison, in 2014. He has one daughter, Harriet, and a son, George.[3]
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