Amanda Vanstone

Her Excellency The Honourable Amanda Vanstone
Australian Ambassador to Italy
In office June 2007 – July 2010
Australian Senator for South Australia
In office 1984–2007
Personal details
Born	7 December 1952 Adelaide, South Australia
Nationality	Australian
Alma mater	University of Adelaide

Amanda Eloise Vanstone (born 7 December 1952) is a former Australian politician and a former Ambassador to Italy. She was a Liberal Senator for South Australia from 1984 to 2007, and held several ministerial portfolios in the Howard Government. After her resignation from the Senate in 2007, she served as the Australian Ambassador to Italy until July 2010. Her time as Minister for Immigration was marked by controversies within the Department of Immigration and Multicultural and Indigenous Affairs.

Early life

Vanstone was born on 7 December 1952, the youngest of four children in Adelaide, South Australia. As a child, Vanstone was educated at St Peter's Collegiate Girls' School before attending the University of Adelaide. At university, Vanstone received both Bachelor of Arts and Bachelor of Law degrees, as well as a Graduate Diploma in Legal Practice and a Marketing Studies Certificate from the South Australian Institute of Technology which is now the University of South Australia. In the late 1980s, Amanda married Tony Vanstone, a commercial lawyer from Adelaide. Prior to entering politics, Vanstone worked as a retailer in a large department store, and later had her own business selling prints and picture-frames. She later took up a job as a legal practitioner.

Political career

In 1984, at age 32, Vanstone was elected the youngest member of the Australian Senate as a representative for South Australia. She was one of 27 senators for the Liberal Party of Australia elected that year. Vanstone's maiden speech to the Senate was made on 27 March 1985 and addressed issues that young Australians had with the then Labor Government led by Prime Minister Bob Hawke.

Vanstone was a member of the Opposition Shadow Ministry from 1987 to 1988, from 1989 to 1990 and from 1993 to 1996, serving as Shadow Attorney-General and Shadow Minister for Justice from 1994 to 1996.

In May 1990, as an opposition backbencher, Vanstone was instrumental in the introduction of televised proceedings in parliament.

In March 1996 Vanstone became one of the two women (with Jocelyn Newman) in John Howard's cabinet when she was appointed Minister for Employment, Education, Training and Youth Affairs. In this portfolio she presided over heavy cuts to the employment programs established by the Keating government, which drew strong criticism. In October 1997 she was dropped from Cabinet and appointed Minister for Justice, a title which was changed to Minister for Justice and Customs in October 1998.

Vanstone made a comeback in January 2001 when she was re-appointed to Cabinet as Minister for Family and Community Services. During this period she was also Minister Assisting the Prime Minister for the Status of Women. In the Family and Community Services portfolio she presided over the massive government pensions and welfare system whose service delivery agency, Centrelink, is a frequent target of criticism by welfare activists.

Vanstone proved to be a blunt-talking, robust defender of government policies, and the then Shadow Minister for Family and Community Services, Wayne Swan, described her as "a political hyena who takes delight in attacking society's most vulnerable".

In his reshuffle in October 2003, Howard showed his confidence in Vanstone by appointing her Minister for Immigration and Multicultural and Indigenous Affairs and Minister Assisting the Prime Minister for Reconciliation, one of the most difficult portfolios in the government because of controversies such as over boat people and Australia's "Pacific Solution". Her biggest decision in this portfolio was to abolish the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission (ATSIC). The abolition of ATSIC was generally supported, but there was controversy over what should replace it.

During 2005 Vanstone became involved in some major controversies, one of them involving a defecting Chinese diplomat, Chen Yonglin, whilst others involved the deportation of people who her department considered undesirable – the Cornelia Rau, Vivian Alvarez Solon, Stefan Nystrom and Robert Jovicic cases. An inquiry by the former Australian Federal Police commissioner Mick Palmer was severely critical of the Immigration Department's treatment of Cornelia Rau.

She has also been criticized for overturning a deportation order and granting a visa in 2005 to Francesco Madafferi, who had been implicated by Italian officials as a dangerous mafia figure. In fact Madafferi is thought to be a member of the Calabrian 'Ndrangheta, known by the name Honoured Society in Australia, which although a similar crime organization to the Sicilian Mafia is distinct from it, however common usage is to lump all such organizations together as Mafia. Francesco and his brother Antonio, a stall holder in Melbourne's Wholesale Fruit and Vegetable market (known to have been controlled by the Honoured Society), were alleged in a report by Victoria Police's organised crime squad to belong to a crime family involved in blackmail, extortion and murder. The report was aired in 2000 at a court hearing during Francesco's fight against deportation, but was later dismissed by an Administrative Appeals Tribunal judge as containing information from unnamed and possibly unreliable police informers. Vanstone justified her decision to grant Madafferi a visa because of a mental illness he was said to be suffering from. However it is alleged that relatives and associates of Madafferi donated up to $100,000 to the Liberal Party, and that four Liberal party politicians had discussed the visa case with Madafferi's supporters or Vanstone's office. In August 2008, Madafferi was arrested and charged, along with several of Australia's other suspected crime bosses (including Australian 'Ndrangheta boss Pasquale "Pat" Barbaro), after Australian Federal Police made the world's biggest ecstasy haul, seizing drugs with a street value of $440 million.

In January 2006 a ministerial reshuffle saw Indigenous Affairs transferred to Mal Brough. Vanstone's title was changed to Minister for Immigration and Multicultural Affairs. In January 2007, the Senator was removed from the cabinet after an election year reshuffle, with Kevin Andrews replacing her as the Immigration Minister in the new Department of Immigration and Citizenship (DIAC).

In July 2006, Vanstone was criticized for holding shares in the South Australian Agribusiness Wasley's Piggery. Wasley's had come under fire after the group, Animal Liberation Australia, revealed footage of animal conditions which they say did not adhere to the state's animal welfare regulations. Vanstone responded stating that she is 'simply one shareholder in the business'. The RSPCA later conducted an inspection and found that while the sow stall sizes were smaller than regulation, the size was only a recommendation and could not be enforced.

In February 2007, she released the lyrics to her "Ode to Australia", Under Southern Stars.

On 26 April 2007, Vanstone announced her immediate resignation from politics, telling reporters, "It is always important to look to the future and with that in mind it is important for me to move on to the next phase of my life".

Vanstone was appointed ambassador to Italy in June 2007.

External links

• Amanda Vanstone, Senate Biography
• Australian Women biographical entry
• Vanstone pens ode to Australia, 4 February 2007, News.com.au, AAP
• Transcript: Amanda Vanstone, Enough Rope with Andrew Denton (Australian Broadcasting Corporation), 24 May 2004.

Parliament of Australia
Preceded by Simon Crean	Minister for Employment, Education, Training and Youth Affairs 1996–97	Succeeded by David Kemp
Preceded by Daryl Williams	Minister for Justice (and Customs) 1997–2001	Succeeded by Chris Ellison
Preceded by Jocelyn Newman	Minister for Family and Community Services 2001–03	Succeeded by Kay Patterson
	Minister assisting the Prime Minister for the Status of Women 2001–03
Preceded by Philip Ruddock	Minister for Immigration and Multicultural (and Indigenous) Affairs 2003–07	Succeeded by Kevin Andrews