Damian Drum

Early life

Drum was born in Shepparton. After graduating from high school, he became a carpenter and joiner, running his own shed construction business for several years. At the same time, he embarked on a football career, and was drafted to the then-VFL's Geelong Football Club in 1981. Over the next nine years, he played 63 games for Geelong. While playing football, he also operated his own business selling sheds and garages. He retired from the VFL at the end of 1990, and joined Victorian Football Association club Werribee in 1991.

Coaching career

In 1993, he quit his business and took up a coaching position with Port Melbourne in the VFA, leading the club to a Grand Final loss against his former club Werribee. In 1994, he moved to Sydney, taking up a position as the assistant coach of the Sydney Swans in the Australian Football League (AFL), under head coach Ron Barassi. After five years in this role, Drum was approached by Fremantle, who had not renewed the contract of their first coach, Gerard Neesham. Drum had been one of the most highly anticipated coaching recruits of the season, and some were surprised that he signed with the struggling Dockers. He had been expected to sign with the Collingwood Football Club the previous year, but the deal had fallen through.

Drum coached Fremantle for three seasons, during which the side suffered from a lack of success. In his first season, the club finished 15th (second-last). There was a slight improvement in his second season, in which Fremantle won several high-profile games; still, the club struggled, finishing twelfth. However, it was the 2001 season, in which Fremantle lost their first nine games of the season, that sealed Drum's fate. He was dismissed after the club's round-nine loss to the Sydney Swans, and was replaced by former Fremantle player and inaugural club captain Ben Allan, who didn't fare much better, with the Dockers still winless after Round 17 in a 22-round season.

After losing the Fremantle job, Drum moved back to Victoria, and took up a position as coach of the Bendigo Diggers in the Victorian Football League. The situation was similar to Fremantle – the Diggers, finished the season winless, with a single draw against the Murray Kangaroos. At the end of the season, Drum decided to retire from football and move into politics, successfully seeking Nationals pre-selection for the Victorian Legislative Council seat of North Western Province at the 2002 state election.

Victorian parliament

Drum was first elected to parliament in 2002 amidst the Labor Party landslide, in which many seats across the state fell to the minority government, and numerous shadow ministers lost their seats. Drum was elected despite the losses sustained by the conservative parties, with the Liberal Party losing a net total of 26 seats whilst the Nationals suffered a net loss of only one seat. The Liberal and National parties ended their coalition in 2000 and campaigned separately.

The demise of the coalition meant that the Nationals had numerous portfolios to fill in order to replace all those that had been occupied by the larger Liberal Party. Despite being a newly elected member with no previous political experience, Drum found himself Deputy Leader of the National Party in the Legislative Council, party Whip, and Shadow Minister for Youth Affairs, Education Services, Sport, Recreation, Racing, Consumer Affairs and the Commonwealth Games. Drum has also been a member of the Environment and Natural Resources Committee since 2003.

For the 2006 election the Upper House of the Victorian parliament underwent major structural changes. Drum's previous seat of North-West Region was replaced by the much larger Northern Victoria Region and proportional rather than preferential voting. Drum was easily elected with a quota in his own right and was the only National Party member for the region.

Drum was appointed Minister for Sports and Veterans Affairs in the Napthine coalition government in March 2014, serving until the defeat of the coalition government that December.

Federal parliament

On 11 April 2016, the Nationals announced that Drum had been preselected to contest the federal seat of Murray at the 2016 federal election. He resigned from the Victorian Legislative Council on 26 May, prior to the closing date for nomination of candidates for the federal election. The seat was held by the Liberals Sharman Stone who announced her retirement on 26 March 2016, with a resultant three-cornered-contest in which Drum defeated his Liberal opponent, Duncan McGauchie, son of Donald McGauchie.