The Honourable Greg Combet AM MP
Member of the Australian Parliament for Charlton
Incumbent
Assumed office 24 November 2007
Preceded by	Kelly Hoare
2nd Minister for Climate Change and Energy Efficiency[1]
Incumbent
Assumed office 14 September 2010
Prime Minister	Julia Gillard
Preceded by	Penny Wong
Minister for Industry and Innovation
Incumbent
Assumed office 14 December 2011
Prime Minister	Julia Gillard
Preceded by	Kim Carr
Personal details
Born	(1958-04-28) 28 April 1958 (age 54) Sydney, New South Wales, Australia
Nationality	Australian
Political party	Australian Labor Party
Spouse(s)	Petra Hilsen (separated)
Children	1 daughter, 1 stepdaughter, 1 stepson
Alma mater	University of New South Wales University of Sydney
Profession	Trade unionist and politician
Website	http://www.gregcombet.com.au/

Gregory Ivan Combet AM MP (born 28 April 1958) is an Australian politician and trade unionist. He was Secretary of the Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU) between 2000 and 2007. He was elected member for the New South Wales seat of Charlton for the Australian Labor Party at the 2007 election and was immediately appointed Parliamentary Secretary for Defence Procurement in the First Rudd Ministry on 3 December 2007. Combet is currently the Minister for Climate Change and Energy Efficiency and the Minister for Innovation and Industry in the Second Gillard Ministry.^[2] He previously served as Parliamentary Secretary of the Department of Climate Change, when Penny Wong was the Minister.

Early life[link]

Greg Combet was born in Sydney and attended Eastern Creek Primary school, then Rooty Hill High School from years 7 to 10.^[3] He completed his secondary education at Baulkham Hills High School.^[3] He was later educated at the University of New South Wales where he studied mining engineering,^[4] and then graduated from the University of Sydney with a Bachelor of Economics, and a Graduate Diploma in Labour Relations and the Law. He was a project officer for the New South Wales Tenants' Union before working for the Lidcombe Workers' Health Centre. In 1987, he was employed by the Waterside Workers' Federation, now part of the Maritime Union of Australia.

Union activity[link]

Combet's association with the Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU) began in 1993 when he became a Senior Industrial Officer. In 1996 he was elected Assistant Secretary and in 2000, following the retirement of Bill Kelty, he became Secretary. Over his time at the ACTU, Combet has co-ordinated many union campaigns, including the 'Cavalcade to Canberra' of 19 August 1996. The protest gained notoriety due to 2,000 breakaway protesters rioting in and around Parliament House.^[5][6] He rose to further prominence during the 1998 Australian waterfront dispute and supported militant union protests during the campaign, saying "the laws were made against workers, and bad laws have to be broken."^[5] Combet also participated in campaigns to secure entitlements and compensation for the staff of the collapsed airline Ansett Australia and asbestos victims of the James Hardie company. In his capacity as Secretary of the ACTU, Combet led the campaign against the Howard Government's WorkChoices industrial relations law changes.

Parliament[link]

On 25 March 2007, The Sunday Age reported that senior Australian Labor Party figures had announced that Combet would run for election representing the ALP in the safe seat of Charlton in New South Wales.^[7] However, later that day Combet told The Age newspaper that he was not planning an entry into federal politics at the 2007 election, preferring instead to continue leading the ACTU's campaign against the industrial relations law changes.^[8] On 4 May 2007, Combet confirmed his intention to run for Charlton.^[9] The sitting member for Charlton, Kelly Hoare, expressed anger at losing preselection for her seat,^[10] and for a time considered running as an independent.

Greg Combet speaking in November 2005, shortly after the Government introduced its WorkChoices legislation

Combet stood down as ACTU Secretary to campaign full time in Charlton in the lead up to the federal election. On 14 June 2007 Jeff Lawrence, National Secretary of the Liquor, Hospitality and Miscellaneous Union (LHMU) was elected unopposed as the next Secretary of the ACTU.^[11]

Greg Combet speaking at the Your Rights at Work rally in Melbourne, 15 November 2005

Combet explaining the effects of the proposed carbon tax in 2011 during a public forum at Petersham town hall.

Combet was elected as the new member for Charlton on 24 November 2007 as part of the ALP's victory in the 2007 Australian federal election, achieving a two party preferred swing of 4.47 percent, winning 62.87 percent of the two party vote.^[12] Following the election, Prime Minister Kevin Rudd appointed Combet as Parliamentary Secretary for Defence Procurement in the First Rudd Ministry. He was sworn in on 3 December 2007.^[13] In February 2009, Combet was appointed Parliamentary Secretary for Climate Change, with a focus on emissions trading, to assist Climate Change Minister Senator Penny Wong.

As a result of the resignation of Defence Minister Joel Fitzgibbon and the subsequent ministerial reshuffle, Combet was promoted to the outer ministry on 6 June 2009, as Minister for Defence Personnel, Materiel and Science and Minister Assisting the Minister for Climate Change. Combet's portfolio was amended in April 2010 to Minister Assisting the Minister for Climate Change and Energy Efficiency and Minister for Defence Materiel and Science^[14] and to help him focus on the Government's energy efficiency programs, he axed part of this scheme – Home Insulation Program (HIP) in late April due to the safety risks and the blow out in funding.^[15][16]

Combet was re-elected to Charlton at the 2010 federal election, suffering a post-redistribution two party swing of 0.24 percent, winning 62.67 percent of the two party vote.^[17]

Personal[link]

Combet is a director of the Chifley Research Centre.

On 12 June 2006, in the Queen's Birthday Honours List, he was made a Member (AM) of the Order of Australia.^[18]

Combet is separated from Petra Hilsen and has one daughter, one stepdaughter and one stepson. Mr Combet split up with his second wife blaming his workload had contributed to the marriage breakdown. He said relationship breakdowns were the price you paid "in this kind of work". Greg Combet and West Australian MP Melissa Parke confirmed their romance, but denied Ms Parke was pregnant. ^[19]

Combet has stated that he is an atheist.^[20]

In the 2007 Australian Broadcasting Corporation television series Bastard Boys, dramatising the 1998 Australian waterfront dispute, in which Combet was heavily involved, the role of Combet was played by Daniel Frederiksen.

References[link]

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Greg Combet

• Hon Greg Combet AM, MP official Parliament of Australia site
• The Hon Greg Combet AM MP official Department of Climate Change and Energy Efficiency site
• Greg Combet AM MP official constituency site
• Profile at NSW Labor Party
• Search or browse Hansard for Greg Combet at OpenAustralia.org
• Greg Combet at OurCampaigns.com
• Greg Combet on Myspace
• Profile at ABC News
• The Hon Greg Combet AM MP speech to the National Press Club of Australia
• Profile^{[dead link]} at ACTU
• Your Rights At Work

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Simon Sheikh is the national director of the Australian political organisation GetUp!.^[1] The son of Michael Sheikh, an Indian-born industrial chemist and inventor, he attended Camdenville Public School, which was officially branded 'underprivileged', and later gained late entry to Fort Street High School.^[2] He later studied Economics at the University of New South Wales.^[3]

He was born in Sydney, and has ancestry from India, Saudi Arabia, New Zealand and Australia.^[4]

Sheikh represented Australia as the youth representative in Uganda for the 2007 Commonwealth Heads of Government meeting, and was also named the New South Wales Young Professional of the Year.^[5]

Personal Life[link]

Shiekh is married to Australian climate activist Anna Rose^[6]

References[link]

See also[link]

• GetUp!

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Sophie Mirabella (née Panopoulos) (born 27 October 1968) is an Australian federal politician. She has been a Liberal member of the Australian House of Representatives since 2001, representing the Division of Indi, Victoria. Mirabella is presently the Shadow Minister for Innovation, Industry, Science and Research.^[1]

Personal life[link]

She was born in Melbourne, Victoria, educated at St Catherine's School, Toorak and was a solicitor and articled clerk from 1995 to 1997 at Riordans. From 1998 until her election to Parliament, she worked as a barrister.

In 1995, she began a live-in relationship with a man forty years her senior, then dean of law at Melbourne University, Colin Howard. The relationship ended in 2001, however they remained close until his death in 2011. Her relationship with Howard was later the subject of a bitter dispute between Mirabella and Howard's adult children.^[2]

In June 2006 she married Lieutenant-Colonel Greg Mirabella, a former Army Reserve Officer still working in the defence industry.^[3]

Political career[link]

She has been a member of the Liberal Party since 1987. She was president of the Melbourne University Liberal Club, vice-president of the Australian Liberal Students Federation, a delegate to the Liberal Party State Council of Victoria and is also a member of numerous Policy Assembly Committees. She became well known during the debate on Australia becoming a republic as a prominent advocate for retaining the constitutional monarchy, and was an elected member of the 1998 Constitutional Convention.

Prior to her preselection as the Liberal candidate to succeed Lou Lieberman as the member for Indi, Mirabella spent some time working as a barrister in Wangaratta, despite being based on Melbourne.

Mirabella received a well above-average 5.6% swing to her in the 2004 federal election, giving her 66.3% of the two-party preferred vote and making Indi one of the safest Liberal seats in the country.

In 2005, she attracted public attention as a key member of an informal "ginger group" of Liberal backbenchers. She chaired this group with Victorian Senator Mitch Fifield. The group argued for "tax reform" (in essence, tax cuts paid for by reductions in government spending), sparking public debate on the topic.

On the prominent issue of asylum seekers, she attacked fellow Liberal backbenchers Petro Georgiou and Judi Moylan, labelling them "political terrorists" for defying government policy on mandatory detention and threatening to hijack the government's agenda by voting down the proposals in Parliament. She was rebuffed soon after, as Prime Minister John Howard agreed to meet some of their concerns and recommendations. In August 2005 she called for Muslim women to be required to remove their head dress when posing for photo identification.

Mirabella has been an advocate of voluntary student unionism (VSU) since her Liberal student days and has strongly supported the legislation which prohibited universities from forcing their students to join student unions and pay "services fees" to them.

Mirabella was re-elected in the 2010 election and is Shadow Minister for Innovation, Industry and Science.^[4]

Criticism of former Liberal Party leader[link]

In January 2008, Mirabella launched an attack on former Liberal Party Prime Minister Malcolm Fraser, after a speech he gave at Melbourne University on "the Bush Administration (reversing) 60 years of progress in establishing a law-based international system", claiming errors and "either intellectual sloppiness or deliberate dishonesty", and that he tacitly supports Islamic fundamentalism, should have no influence on foreign policy, and that his stance on the war on terror has left him open to caricature as a "frothing-at-the-mouth leftie".^[5]

Statements about the Stolen Generation[link]

On 13 February 2008, Mirabella was one of five Liberal Party of Australia MPs not present when a motion was passed unanimously apologising to the stolen generations of indigenous children between federation and the 1970s.^[6] She explained her decision by asserting that there had never been a formal policy in Victoria of removing children from their families and that there is no evidence for any "truly stolen" children,^[7] despite the fact that the first laws passed giving authorities the right to take children from their parents were passed and used in Victoria.^[8]

Gillard-Gaddafi Comparison[link]

On 2 March 2011, Mirabella compared the Prime Minister, Julia Gillard to Muammar Gaddafi, claiming that both were delusional.^[9] Gillard had recently announced a plan to proceed with a carbon tax despite earlier promises to the contrary. The Leader of the Opposition, Tony Abbott refused to condemn Mirabella, instead terming the comparison colourful and not language he would use.^[10]

Political Funding Controversy[link]

On 22 September 2011, the Melbourne Age newspaper reported that Mirabella may have potentially breached electoral laws by failing to disclose $100,000 in financial support received from Colin Howard QC, her partner at the time.^[11]

References[link]

External links[link]

• Sophie Mirabella webpage
• Search or browse Hansard for Sophie Mirabella at OpenAustralia.org