Christine Gallus | |
|---|---|
| Member of the Australian Parliament for Hawker | |
| In office 24 March 1990 –13 March 1993 | |
| Preceded by | Elizabeth Harvey |
| Succeeded by | Division abolished |
| Member of the Australian Parliament for Hindmarsh | |
| In office 13 March 1993 –31 August 2004 | |
| Preceded by | John Scott |
| Succeeded by | Steve Georganas |
| Personal details | |
| Born | 6 April 1943 Adelaide, South Australia |
| Nationality | Australian |
| Political party | Liberal Party of Australia |
| Alma mater | Flinders University Australian National University |
| Occupation | Journalist, business director |
Christine Ann "Chris" Gallus (born 6 April 1943), Australian politician, was a Liberal member of the Australian House of Representatives from 1990 to 2004, representing two different seats in South Australia—the Division of Hawker from 1990 to 1993 and the Division of Hindmarsh from 1993 to 2004. [1] She was born in Adelaide and was educated at the Firbank Girls' Grammar School in Melbourne, Flinders University and the Australian National University. She was a researcher with the South Australian Health Commission, an advertising executive, journalist and small business director before entering politics.
Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania and numerous smaller islands. It is the largest country in Oceania and the world's sixth-largest country by total area. The neighbouring countries are Papua New Guinea, Indonesia and East Timor to the north; the Solomon Islands and Vanuatu to the north-east; and New Zealand to the south-east. The population of 25 million is highly urbanised and heavily concentrated on the eastern seaboard. Australia's capital is Canberra, and its largest city is Sydney. The country's other major metropolitan areas are Melbourne, Brisbane, Perth and Adelaide.
The Liberal Party of Australia is a major centre-right political party in Australia, one of the two major parties in Australian politics, along with the centre-left Australian Labor Party (ALP). It was founded in 1944 as the successor to the United Australia Party (UAP).
The House of Representatives is the lower house of the bicameral Parliament of Australia, the upper house being the Senate. Its composition and powers are established in Chapter I of the Constitution of Australia.
Gallus was first elected to the seat of Hawker, based on Glenelg and the Holdfast Bay area, at the 1990 election, defeating one-term Labor incumbent Elizabeth Harvey on a razor-edge 50.01 percent two-party vote from a 1.2 percent two-party swing. Had just 14 Australian Democrats supporters ranked Harvey higher than Gallus on next preferences, Harvey would have won.
Glenelg is a beach-side suburb of the South Australian capital of Adelaide. Located on the shore of Holdfast Bay in Gulf St Vincent, it has become a tourist destination due to its beach and many attractions, home to several hotels and dozens of restaurants. Glenelg also became infamous for being the site of the Beaumont children disappearance in 1966.
The Holdfast Bay is a small bay in Gulf St Vincent, next to Adelaide, South Australia. Along its shores lie the City of Holdfast Bay and the popular beach-side suburb of Glenelg.
The Australian Labor Party is a major centre-left political party in Australia. The party has been in opposition at the federal level since the 2013 election. Bill Shorten has been the party's federal parliamentary leader since 13 October 2013. The party is a federal party with branches in each state and territory. Labor is in government in the states of Victoria, Queensland, Western Australia, and in both the Australian Capital Territory and Northern Territory. The party competes against the Liberal/National Coalition for political office at the federal and state levels. It is the oldest political party in Australia.
Hawker was abolished ahead of the 1993 federal election. Most of its territory, including Glenelg, was absorbed into neighbouring Hindmarsh, and Gallus opted to follow most of her constituents there. Hindmarsh had long been a Labor stronghold, but had grown increasingly marginal over the last decade. Largely due to the addition of Holdfast Bay, Labor's already thin majority of 5.3 percent was pared back even further, to an extremely marginal 1.2 percent. Additionally, the election was called at a bad time for the state Labor government, which was still reeling from the collapse of the State Bank of South Australia. Indeed, the state Labor government would be heavily defeated at a state election later that year. Gallus took a substantial first-count lead and ultimately won on the eighth count, becoming only the second non-Labor MP ever to win the seat and the first since 1917. To date, it is also the only time that Labor has been in government without holding Hindmarsh.
The State Bank of South Australia was a bank created in 1984 and owned by the Government of South Australia. The bank became the subject of a two-year South Australian Royal Commission upon collapse in 1991. The surviving part of the bank now exists as BankSA.
In the last couple of years of the Liberal Party's time in Opposition, which ended in 1996, Gallus was Shadow Minister for Aboriginal Affairs, in which she was seen as an effective opponent against Aboriginal Affairs Minister Robert Tickner when she attacked his credibility over the Hindmarsh Island bridge controversy. The controversy over the Hindmarsh Island bridge was believed to have cost Tickner his seat at the 1996 election. Despite this she was not picked for a place in the ministry by new Liberal Prime Minister John Howard.
Robert Edward Tickner is a former Australian Labor Party cabinet minister. He was Chief Executive Officer of the Australian Red Cross from February 2005 to July 2015.
The Hindmarsh Island bridge controversy was a 1990s Australian legal and political controversy that involved the clash of Indigenous Australian religious beliefs and property rights. A proposed bridge to Hindmarsh Island, near Goolwa, South Australia attracted opposition from many local residents, environmental groups and indigenous leaders. In 1994, a group of Ngarrindjeri women elders claimed the site was sacred to them for reasons that could not be revealed. The case attracted much controversy because the issue intersected with broader concerns about Indigenous rights in the Australian community at the time, and coincided with the Mabo and Wik High Court cases regarding Native Title.
John Winston Howard, is an Australian former politician who served as the 25th Prime Minister of Australia from 1996 to 2007. He is the second-longest serving Australian Prime Minister, behind only Sir Robert Menzies, who was in office for over 18 years. Howard was leader of the Liberal Party from 1985 to 1989 and from 1995 to 2007.
Gallus did, however, become Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Reconciliation and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Affairs in 2001 and Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Foreign Affairs 2001-04. [2]
Gallus gained a large swing in the 1996 election, technically making Hindmarsh a safe Liberal seat. However, she had to withstand strong challenges from Labor's Steve Georganas in the next two elections. Gallus retired at the 2004 election and was replaced as the Liberal candidate by Simon Birmingham, who lost the seat to Georganas by just 108 votes.
Steven Georganas is an Australian politician and is the Australian Labor Party member for the House of Representatives seat of Hindmarsh in South Australia from the 2004 election until the 2013 election. He was re-elected at the 2016 election.
Simon John Birmingham, an Australian politician, is a member of the Australian Senate representing South Australia as a member of the Liberal Party since 2007. Birmingham served as Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for the Environment from 18 September 2013 then Assistant Minister for Education and Training in the Abbott Ministry from December 2014, before being promoted to Minister for Education and Training in the Turnbull Government from September 2015. Upon the installment of the Morrison Ministry in August 2018, he became the Minister for Trade, Tourism and Investment.
