Joel Fitzgibbon

Background

Joel Fitzgibbon was born in Bellingen, New South Wales, and is the son of Eric Fitzgibbon who was MP for Hunter 1984–96. Before entering politics Fitzgibbon was an automotive electrician, electorate officer, part-time technical education lecturer and small business operator. He was a member of the Cessnock City Council in the period 1987–95.

Political career

Joel's father, Eric Fitzgibbon, retired before the 1996 election, and Joel won Labor preselection for the seat. Hunter is one of Labor's few country strongholds; it has been in Labor hands without interruption since 1910. While Joel Fitzgibbon suffered a seven-point swing in 1996, he has been re-elected with little trouble since then, with the exception of the 2013 election, where his margin was significantly reduced. He was elected to the opposition shadow ministry in October 1998 and was appointed Shadow Minister for Mining, Energy and Forestry in 2003–05. In June 2005 he was appointed shadow assistant treasurer and shadow minister for revenue and for small business and competition. In early December 2006, when Kevin Rudd became leader of the opposition, Fitzgibbon was appointed shadow minister for defence. He was subsequently appointed minister for defence when Labor won office at the 2007 federal election.

Minister for Defence

In 2008 Fitzgibbon expressed dissatisfaction with an unclassified briefing he received on an assessment of the Joint Strike Fighter (JSF). He subsequently ordered and received a classified report that addressed his concerns, and then expressed confidence in the JSF project. In the same interview, he denied any personal involvement in the Australian Federal Police (AFP) raid on the home of Canberra Times' journalist Philip Dorling, although he did not guarantee that his department had not contacted the AFP. Dorling was accused of receiving confidential cabinet documents intended for Fitzgibbon.

On 22 October 2008, Fitzgibbon instructed the Department of Defence to cease debt recovery procedures against SAS soldiers who had been accidentally overpaid. A subsequent audit by KPMG discovered that the soldiers' pay continued to be docked after the ministerial instruction.

Controversy

On 26 March 2009, Fairfax Media reported that officers in the Department of Defence had conducted a covert and unauthorised investigation into Fitzgibbon's friendship with a Chinese-Australian businesswoman in the belief that it constituted a security risk. This was alleged to have included officers from the Defence Signals Directorate accessing the computer network in Fitzgibbon's office to obtain the woman's bank details. The Department launched an urgent inquiry into the reports. Nick Warner, the Department's Secretary, stated that he had not seen any information to confirm the claims and that there were no circumstances in which secret investigations into Ministers could be authorised. Fitzgibbon was reported to be "furious" about the investigation, and suggested that it may have been conducted by officials opposed to his reforms to the Australian Defence Organisation.

Fitzgibbon resigned as Minister for Defence on 4 June 2009 after admitting that meetings held between his brother Mark Fitzgibbon, the head of the health fund NIB, and Defence officials concerning business opportunities had breached the Ministerial Code of Conduct.

In 2013, Fitzgibbon reflected on his term as Defence Minister and said that the defence chiefs had an obsession for the JSF and had refused to consider other alternatives.

43rd Parliament

Following his re-election in the 2010 federal election, Fitzgibbon was elected by the Labor caucus as chief government whip.

Following the June 2013 Labor leadership spill, Fitzgibbon was appointed as Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry in the Second Rudd ministry.

2015 proposed abolition of Hunter

In 2015 the Australian Electoral Commission announced plans to abolish the federation seat of Hunter. Due to changing populations, overall New South Wales was to lose a seat while Western Australia was to gain an extra seat. Electors in the north of Hunter were to join New England. The roughly 40 percent remainder were to become part of Paterson, with the Liberal margin calculated to be notionally reduced from 9.8 percent to just 0.5 percent as a result. Since the Commission's guidelines require it to preserve the names of original electorates where possible, the commission proposed renaming Charlton to Hunter.

The final plan, however, saw Charlton abolished, with Hunter pushed slightly eastward to absorb much of Charlton's former territory. While most of the new Hunter's voters come from the old Charlton, as previously mentioned, Commission guidelines required the name of Hunter to be retained. The Labor incumbent for Charlton, Pat Conroy, opted to contest neighbouring Shortland in order to allow Fitzgibbon to contest the new Hunter.