The Honourable Senator John Faulkner
Minister for Defence
In office 9 June 2009 – 13 September 2010
Prime Minister	Kevin Rudd Julia Gillard
Preceded by	Joel Fitzgibbon
Succeeded by	Stephen Smith
Vice-President of the Executive Council
In office 3 December 2007 – 13 September 2010
Prime Minister	Kevin Rudd Julia Gillard
Preceded by	Nick Minchin
Succeeded by	Robert McClelland
Special Minister of State
In office 3 December 2007 – 9 June 2009
Prime Minister	Kevin Rudd
Preceded by	Gary Nairn
Succeeded by	Joe Ludwig
Minister for the Environment, Sport and Territories
In office 25 March 1994 – 11 March 1996
Prime Minister	Paul Keating
Preceded by	Graham Richardson
Succeeded by	Robert Hill (Environment) Warwick Smith (Sport, Territories and Local Government)
Minister for Defence Science and Personnel
In office 24 March 1993 – 25 March 1994
Prime Minister	Paul Keating
Preceded by	Gordon Bilney
Succeeded by	Gary Punch
Minister for Veterans' Affairs
In office 24 March 1993 – 25 March 1994
Prime Minister	Paul Keating
Preceded by	Ben Humphreys
Succeeded by	Con Sciacca
Senator for New South Wales
Incumbent
Assumed office 4 April 1989
Preceded by	Arthur Gietzelt
Personal details
Born	(1954-04-12) 12 April 1954 (age 58) Leeton, Australia
Political party	Labor Party
Alma mater	Macquarie University
Website	Official website

John Philip Faulkner (born 12 April 1954) is an Australian politician. He has been a Labor member of the Australian Senate since 1989, representing the state of New South Wales. Following a period serving on various Senate Committees and as Deputy Whip, he was a Minister in the Keating Labor government 1993-96. Following several years in opposition as a Shadow Minister, he was appointed in 2007 as Vice-President of the Executive Council and Special Minister of State in the Rudd Government. He was Minister for Defence from June 2009 to September 2010.^[1]

He announced in July 2010 that he would return to the backbench after the 2010 election, ^[2] and subsequently was replaced as Defence Minister by Stephen Smith on 13 September 2010.^[3]

Within Labor circles, Faulkner's elder statesman status is virtually unrivalled by any presently active politician.^[4]

Early career[link]

Faulkner was born in Leeton, New South Wales on 12 April 1954, and was educated at Macquarie University, Sydney, where he graduated in Arts and Education (BA, DipEd). He worked as a Special Education teacher in government schools before entering politics from 1977 to 1979. In 1980 he was employed as a Research officer to the New South Wales Minister for Sport and Recreation, Ken Booth. Gaining prominence within the ALP, he was made Assistant General Secretary of the NSW party in 1980, serving for nine years and became a member of the ALP National Executive in 1989.^[1]

A leading member of the Socialist Left faction of the ALP, Faulkner was appointed to the Senate in 1989 to succeed the former left-wing minister Arthur Gietzelt, who had resigned mid-term. In the Keating Labor government, Faulkner was Minister for Veterans' Affairs and Minister for Defence Science and Personnel 1993–94, and Minister for the Environment, Sport and Territories, with a seat in the Cabinet, 1994–96.

After the defeat of the Keating government in 1996, Faulkner became Leader of the Opposition in the Senate, and was a member of the Opposition Shadow Ministry 1996–2004. He was at various times Shadow Minister for Social Security, Public Administration and Home Affairs. He was a key Labor strategist in the 1998, 2001 and 2004 federal elections, and was a particularly close advisor to Mark Latham during the 2004 election. In the wake of Labor's defeat in that election, he resigned his positions. ^[5] In October 2006 John Faulkner was elected as the National President of the Australian Labor Party until February 2008. Three people are elected to the rotating position of Party President every three years, each serving one year. Faulkner chaired the ALP's National Conference in 2007, and each of the rotating Presidents will chair the National Executive for one year.

Government minister[link]

Faulkner with Chief of the Defence Force Air Chief Marshal Angus Houston and former Chief of the Defence Force Peter Cosgrove in November 2009

John Faulkner (left) with US Defence Secretary Robert Gates (right)

John Faulkner was the Vice-President of the Executive Council, Special Minister of State and Cabinet Secretary in the Rudd Ministry. In his role he introduced new rules for ministerial conduct and fundraising aimed at reducing the influence of lobbyists on government decisions. He also introduced new guidelines reducing the overt political control of government funded advertising.^[6]

On 5 June 2009, John Faulkner was announced as the new Minister for Defence, replacing Joel Fitzgibbon, who had stepped down the previous day. He was sworn in on 9 June.^[7][8] He has retained this portfolio in the First Gillard Government.

On 7 July 2010 Faulkner announced that he would step down as Defence Minister and return to the backbench after the next election.^[9]

Personal life[link]

Faulkner has two children from his former marriage to fellow Labor politician Sandra Nori.^[10] He is also known for his distinctive 1980s-style glasses.^[11]

Publications[link]

John Faulkner has authored or co-authored several books on the subject of representative government and the history of the Australian Labor Party.

• Costar, Brian; Meg Lees, Helen Coonan, John Faulkner, Harry Evans (2000). Deadlock or Democracy? The Future of the Senate. Sydney: UNSW Press. 57 pages. ISBN 0-86840-570-1. 
• Faulkner, John; Stuart Macintyre (2001). True believers: the story of the federal parliamentary Labor Party. Crows Nest: Allen & Unwin. 328 pages. ISBN 1-86508-609-6. 
• Faulkner, John (2005). Parliamentary privilege: precedents, procedure and practice in the Australian Senate 1966–2005. Canberra: Senate Committee of Privileges. 201 pages. ISBN 0-642-71601-3. 

See also[link]

• Second Keating Ministry
• Rudd Ministry
• Gillard Ministry

References[link]

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: John Faulkner

• Personal website
• Senator The Hon. John Faulkner - Parliament of Australia
• John Faulkner – Senator for New South Wales – ALP profile

v t e Rudd Cabinet (2007–10) Prime Minister: Kevin Rudd Anthony Albanese • Chris Bowen • Tony Burke • Kim Carr • Stephen Conroy • Simon Crean • Chris Evans • John Faulkner • Martin Ferguson • Joel Fitzgibbon • Peter Garrett • Julia Gillard • Joe Ludwig • Jenny Macklin • Robert McClelland • Nicola Roxon • Stephen Smith • Wayne Swan • Lindsay Tanner • Penny Wong

Dolores Keane (born 26 September 1953) is an Irish folk singer and occasional actress. She was a founding member of the successful group De Dannan, and has since embarked on a very successful solo career, establishing herself as one of the most loved interpreters of Irish song.^[1]

Background[link]

Keane was born in a small village called Sylane (near Tuam) in rural County Galway in the west of Ireland. She was raised by her aunts Rita and Sarah Keane since the age of four, who are also well-known sean-nós singers. Keane started her singing at a very young age, due to the influence of her musical aunts. She made her first recording for Radio Éireann in 1958, at the age of five. This early start inevitably meant that Keane would have a career in music. Her brother, Seán, also went on to enjoy a successful music career.^[2]

Musical career[link]

De Dannan[link]

In 1975, she co-founded the traditional Irish band De Dannan, and they released their debut album Dé Danann in that same year. The group gained international recognition and enjoyed major success in the late 1970s in the US. Keane went touring with the band and their single “The Rambling Irishman” was a big hit in Ireland. In 1977, after a short two year spell, Keane left De Dannan to marry musician John Faulkner.^[3]

Solo career[link]

They newly married Dolores and John decided to move to Britain. While there, the pair worked on a series of film scores and programmes for the BBC and formed two successful bands, The Reel Union and Kinvara. During this period Keane recorded her first solo album, There Was a Maid in 1978. This was followed by two other releases, Broken Hearted I'll Wander (1979) and Farewell to Eirinn (1980), which gave credit to Faulkner. She returned to Ireland in the mid-1980s and rejoined with De Dannan and recorded the albums Anthem and Ballroom with them.

Keane turned her attention, once again, to her solo career in 1988. It saw the release of the eponymous Dolores Keane album. Her follow-up album A Lion in a Cage, which hit the shelves in 1989, featured a song written by Faulkner protesting the imprisonment of Nelson Mandela.^[4] It served as Keane’s second Irish number one and she performed the hit at the celebration of his release. This exposure expanded Keane’s reputation and popularity worldwide. A new facet was added to Dolores' career when she played the female lead in the Dublin production of Brendan Behan's The Hostage, a new translation by Niall Tóibín and Michael Scott, the opening night of which was attended by Mary Robinson, the President of Ireland at the time.

In 1992, Keane was among the many female Irish singers to lend their music to the record-smashing anthology A Woman's Heart. The album, which also featured Eleanor McEvoy, Mary Black, Frances Black, Sharon Shannon and Maura O'Connell, went on to become the biggest-selling album in Irish history. A Woman's Heart Vol.2 was released in late 1994 and emulated its predecessor in album charts the world over. Also in 1994, a solo album, entitled Solid Ground, was released on the Shanachie label (available on Dara Records) and received critical acclaim in Europe and America.

In August, 1995, Keane was awarded the prestigious Fiddler's Green Hall of Fame award in Rostrevor, County Down, for her “significant contribution to the cause of Irish music and culture”. In that same year, she took to the stage in the Dublin production of JM Synge’s Playboy of the Western World. Dolores contributed to the RTÉ/BBC television production "Bringing It All Back Home", a series of programmes illustrating the movement of Irish music to America. Dolores was shown performing both in Nashville, Tennessee with musicians such as Emmylou Harris and Richard Thompson and at home in Galway with her aunts Rita and Sarah.

In August, 1997, Keane went to number one again in the Irish album charts with a compilation album with her most loved songs. And another studio album was released by Keane in 1998, called Night Owl. It saw Keane returning to her traditional Irish roots and it done well in Europe and America. Despite a healthy solo career, Keane went on tour with De Dannan again in the late 1990s, where she played to packed audiences in venues such as Birmingham, Alabama and New York City.^[5]

Keane has not released a solo album since 1998 as of 2008, stating that she wanted to take a hard-earned break after twenty-five years of relentless touring.

Musical legacy[link]

Keane is known the world-over for her deep, yet melodic voice. Her recordings of songs such as Dougie McLean's "Caledonia", Frank A. Fahey's "Galway Bay", Paul Brady's "The Island" and "Never Be the Sun" are regarded as amongst the greatest interpreatations of these songs.^[6] American singer Nanci Griffith said of Keane: "Dolores Keane, the queen of the soul of Ireland, has a sacred voice.".^[7]

Personal life[link]

Keane married musician John Faulkner, with whom she had worked on many occasions, in 1977 . After a very difficult pregnancy, Keane gave birth to their first child, Joseph. He was born with Laurence-Moon-Bardet-Biedl Syndrome, which causes obesity and failing vision, though he has been spared mental retardation. Dolores and John's marriage ended in 1988. Her current partner is Barry "Bazza" Farmer, with whom she had her second child, Tara, born in 1994. Keane put an end to recording and touring in the late 1990s, due to depression and alcoholism. She has received extensive treatment for these conditions. As of 2007, Keane lives outside Galway with her two children and Barry.^[8]

Discography[link]

• There Was A Maid (1978)
• Dolores Keane (1988)
• Lion in a Cage (1989)
• Solid Ground (1993)
• Night Owl (1998) Alula Records

De Dannan[link]

• Dé Dannan (1975)
• Anthem (1985)
• Ballroom (1988)

Dolores Keane and John Faulkner[link]

• Broken Hearted I'll Wander (1979)
• Farewell To Eirinn (1980)
• Sail Og Rua (1983)

Rita Eriksen and Dolores Keane[link]

• Tideland (1996) Alula Records

Compilations[link]

• Best of Dolores Keane (1997)
• Where Have all the Flowers Gone: The Very Best of Dolores Keane (2003)

Anthologies[link]

• A Woman's Heart (1992)
• Bringing It All Back Home - Influence of Irish Music (2 CDs) (2000)

Video (VHS)[link]

• Bringing It All Back Home - Influence of Irish Music (1992) (various artists)

References[link]

External links[link]

• Dolores Keane discography at MusicBrainz
• allmusic.com biography