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Norm Sanders | |
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| Senator for Tasmania | |
| In office 1 July 1985 –1 March 1990 | |
| Succeeded by | Robert Bell |
| Personal details | |
| Born | 15 October 1932 Cleveland,Ohio,US |
| Political party | Democrats |
Norman Karl Sanders (born 15 October 1932) is an Australian former politician,representing the Australian Democrats in the Tasmanian House of Assembly from 1980 to 1982 and the Australian Senate from 1985 to 1990.
Born in Cleveland,Sanders served in the United States Air Force from 1950 to 1952. He worked as an Alaskan bush pilot and later,an aerospace engineer. He completed a Bachelor of Science degree at the University of Alaska,and Master of Arts at the University of California,Los Angeles. Having obtained a Fulbright Scholarship to study in Australia,he was awarded his doctorate at the University of Tasmania in 1968.
Upon returning to the United States,Sanders took up the role of assistant professor of geography at the University of California,Santa Barbara. He was very active in the battle to stop offshore oil drilling,was on the board of directors of GET OIL OUT! (GOO!) and a founding director of Western Citizens for Environmental Defense,which conducted environmental legal actions. He was a member of the International Council of Environmental Law,Bonn,Germany. He was also deeply involved in the campaign to pass Proposition 20,the California Coastal Initiative. Sanders sailed across the Pacific to Tasmania in 1974. On the voyage,he and his crew became witnesses in the Palmyra murders described by Vincent Bugliosi in his book And the Sea Will Tell.
While still in Hobart,Sanders worked as a TV journalist on the ABC current-affairs program This Day Tonight . This was the prelude to his becoming heavily involved in Australia's nascent environmental movement,and to his directorship of the Tasmanian Wilderness Society. He published two books on environmental issues. [1]
A decision by the Tasmanian Labor government (then led by Premier Harry Holgate) to dam the Franklin River led Sanders to become a leader of the movement to oppose the proposed dam. Representing the Australian Democrats (then still a new party),he was elected to the Tasmanian House of Assembly as the Member for Denison at a 1980 by-election. This success made him Australia's first parliamentarian ever to be elected on a specifically environmental platform. In parliament,Sanders was a key player in the campaign to save the Franklin River,and successfully moved a motion of no confidence in the Holgate administration during March 1982. This forced an early state election,which Holgate lost.
During the early 1980s,Sanders lobbied to bring in water bombers to fight Tasmanian bushfires. Although he was unsuccessful (the idea was dismissed as unsuitable for "Australian conditions"),many years later this became standard practice in Australia,as it had already become in America.
On 23 December 1982,Sanders resigned from the Tasmanian Parliament. He claimed that the new government,led by the Liberals' Robin Gray,was becoming totalitarian in nature over the Franklin Dam issue and,in particular,over the way in which anti-dam protesters were being treated by the state's law enforcement sector. [2]
Sanders spent the next few years as a small businessman,selling an ecologically sound,efficient wood heater of his own design called the "Sanders Hot Prospect Stove" from the back of a truck at the Salamanca Market. He then turned his attention to federal politics and was elected as a Democrats senator at the 1984 election on an environmental platform,his term commencing on 1 July 1985. He was the only person to represent the Australian Democrats in both a state parliament and the Federal Parliament.
He was a member of an Australian parliamentary delegation to the Soviet Union where he had talks with Andrei Gromyko about nuclear disarmament. The delegation then proceeded to Poland to meet with General Wojciech Jaruzelski. He also was on delegations to NATO,Finland,Norway,Uzbekistan,the European Parliament,France,Belgium,and China. He was re-elected at the 1987 election but resigned from the Senate on 1 March 1990 to contest a Senate position in the Australian Capital Territory at the 1990 federal election. [2] He was unsuccessful.
Following his defeat,Sanders lectured in Human Ecology at the Australian National University. He unsuccessfully contested the House of Representatives seat of Eden-Monaro (NSW) for the Democrats at the 1993 federal election.
Sanders is an experienced mountaineer and skier. In 1954 he was a member of the twelfth party to climb Mount McKinley,and climbed a number of other high peaks in Alaska and Canada. He was on the professional ski patrol at Alta,Utah and a member of the UCLA ski team.
A keen sea kayaker,he designed two commercially built sea kayaks,the Inuit Classic and the Inuit Explorer. He is a past president of the New South Wales Sea Kayak Club.
Sanders currently lives near Byron Bay,New South Wales,where he conducts charter flights in self-launching gliders. He is married to animal rights activist and journalist Sue Arnold,and has one daughter,Cristina,and two grandchildren who presently live in San Francisco.
Robert James Brown is an Australian former politician,medical doctor and environmentalist. He was a senator and the parliamentary leader of the Australian Greens. Brown was elected to the Australian Senate on the Tasmanian Greens ticket,joining with sitting Greens Western Australia senator Dee Margetts to form the first group of Australian Greens senators following the 1996 federal election. He was re-elected in 2001 and in 2007. He was the first openly gay member of the Parliament of Australia and the first openly gay leader of an Australian political party.
The Tasmanian Greens are a political party in Australia which developed from numerous environmental campaigns in Tasmania,including the flooding of Lake Pedder and the Franklin Dam campaign. They form a part of the Australian Greens.
The Franklin Dam or Gordon-below-Franklin Dam project was a proposed dam on the Gordon River in Tasmania,Australia,that was never constructed. The movement that eventually led to the project's cancellation became one of the most significant environmental campaigns in Australian history.
Christine Anne Milne is an Australian politician who served as a Senator for Tasmania. She was the leader of the parliamentary caucus of the Australian Greens from 2012 to 2015. Milne stepped down as leader on 6 May 2015,replaced by Richard Di Natale.
The Wilderness Society is an Australian,community-based,not-for-profit non-governmental environmental advocacy organisation. Its vision is to "transform Australia into a society that protects,respects and connects with the natural world that sustains us."
This is a list of members of the Tasmanian House of Assembly,elected at the 1982 state election:
Harold Norman Holgate AO was a Labor Party politician and Premier of Tasmania from 11 November 1981 to 26 May 1982.
Douglas Ackley Lowe AM was the 35th Premier of Tasmania,from 1 December 1977 to 11 November 1981. His time as Premier coincided with controversy over a proposal to build a dam on Tasmania's Gordon River,which would have flooded parts of the Franklin River. The ensuing crisis saw Lowe overthrown as Premier and resign from the Labor Party,acting as an independent for the remainder of his political career.
William Michael Hodgman AM QC was an Australian politician and lawyer. He was a member of the Liberal Party and served as Minister for the Capital Territory in the Fraser government from 1980 to 1983. He was active in both state and federal politics,serving in the Tasmanian Legislative Council (1966–1974),Australian House of Representatives (1975–1987),and Tasmanian House of Assembly. His son Will Hodgman was Premier of Tasmania for 6 years,until his resignation in January 2020.
Norman Kirkwood Ewing,Australian politician,was a member of three parliaments:the Western Australian Legislative Assembly,the Australian Senate,and the Tasmanian House of Assembly. He became a Judge of the Supreme Court of Tasmania,and was Administrator of Tasmania from November 1923 to June 1924.
Larissa Tahireh "Lara" Giddings is an Australian former politician who was the 44th Premier of Tasmania from 24 January 2011 until 31 March 2014,the first woman to hold the position. Born in Goroka,Papua New Guinea,she was a Labor Party member of the Tasmanian House of Assembly seat of Franklin from 2002 to 2018,and was the party's leader during her period as premier,replaced by Bryan Green after her government's defeat at the 2014 state election. Giddings came from the Labor Left faction. As of 2023,she remains the most recent premier of Tasmania from the Labor Party.
William James McWilliams was an Australian politician who served as the inaugural leader of the Country Party,in office from 1920 to 1921. He was a member of the House of Representatives from 1903 to 1922 and from 1928 to his death,on both occasions representing the Division of Franklin in Tasmania. He represented five different political parties during his time in parliament,eventually seeing out his final term as an independent.
Terrence Gordon Aulich is a former Australian Labor Party politician who represented the Division of Wilmot in the Tasmanian House of Assembly (1976–82) and the state of Tasmania in the Federal Senate (1984–93).
The 1982 Tasmanian state election was held on 15 May 1982 in the Australian state of Tasmania to elect 35 members of the Tasmanian House of Assembly. The election used the Hare-Clark proportional representation system —seven members were elected from each of five electorates. The quota required for election was 12.5% in each division.
The Tasmanian power referendum was a one-question referendum held on 12 December 1981,and intended to determine the location of a proposed hydroelectricity dam to be built on the Gordon River in Tasmania,Australia.
Alfred Charles Seabrook was an Australian politician. He was a Nationalist member of the Australian House of Representatives for Franklin from 1922 to 1928 and a United Australia Party member of the Tasmanian House of Assembly for Franklin from 1931 to 1934.
Robert John Bell was an Australian schoolteacher,politician and conservationist. He served as a Senator for Tasmania from 1990 to 1996,representing the Australian Democrats. He was the party's last elected official in Tasmania.
William Ebenezer Shoobridge was an Australian politician. He was born in Richmond,Tasmania. He unsuccessfully contested the 1910 and 1913 elections for the federal seat of Franklin as a Labor candidate. He narrowly missed election at the 1914 Senate election. In 1916 he was elected to the Tasmanian House of Assembly as a Labor member for Franklin. He served until he was defeated in 1919. He was re-elected in a recount in 1922 and in 1925 switched seats to Wilmot. He was defeated again in 1928 but returned for a final term from 1929 to 1931. He resigned from the Labor Party in 1932. Shoobridge died in Hobart in 1940. His father Ebenezer Shoobridge,brother Louis Shoobridge Sr. and nephew Rupert Shoobridge were all members of the Tasmanian Parliament.
Jonathon Duniam is an Australian politician. He is a member of the Liberal Party and has served as a Senator for Tasmania since the 2016 federal election. He served as an assistant minister in the Morrison government from 2019 until May 2022,following the appointment of the Albanese ministry. Prior to entering parliament Duniam was a political staffer,including as deputy chief of staff to Tasmanian premier Will Hodgman.
The Tasmanian Labor Party,officially known as the Australian Labor Party (Tasmanian Branch) and commonly referred to simply as Tasmanian Labor,is the Tasmanian branch of the Australian Labor Party. It has been one of the most successful state Labor parties in Australia in terms of electoral success.
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