Steve Fielding
Encyclopedia : S : ST : STE : Steve Fielding
Steven Fielding (born 17 October 1960), Australian politician, is parliamentary leader of the Family First Party.
Fielding was born in Melbourne and educated at Melbourne University, where he graduated in engineering, and at Monash University, where he gained an MBA. He worked as an engineer and business executive before entering politics. He was a member of the Knox City Council in 2003-04.
Fielding was elected to represent Victoria in the Senate at the 2004 federal election. He is the first representative of Family First to be elected to the Federal Parliament.
Since he polled less than 2% of the popular vote, Fielding's election was not expected. Like many Senators he gained quota under the Senate's proportional representation system by receiving preferences from other parties (see Australian electoral system). The Australian Democrats and the Australian Labor Party agreed to swap preferences with Family First in the belief that Family First could not win a seat. But Fielding benefited from the larger-than-expected surplus of Liberal preferences, and stayed in the count long enough to receive Democrat and Labor preferences, defeating the Australian Greens' candidate David Risstrom for the last Senate place in Victoria.
While Family First is generally regarded as a conservative party, Fielding has said that he will not be an automatic supporter of government legislation in the Senate, where the government has a majority of one. On some issues which he sees as affecting the well-being of families, such as industrial relations, he has indicated disagreement with government policies.
He supported the passage of legislation providing for Voluntary student unionism which forbids Australian universities from compulsorily levying amenities and services fees on their students. His office was then the target of anti-VSU activists, who protested the decision by vandalising the walls with pro-union graffiti.
Fielding and his wife Susan have three children, James, Campbell and Gabrielle.
See also
| Current members of the Australian Senate |
From Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia. Original article here. Support Wikipedia by contributing or donating.
All text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License See Wikipedia Copyrights for details.