Steve Fielding

Steve Fielding
Senator for Victoria
In office 1 July 2005 – 30 June 2011
Personal details
Born	(1960-10-17) 17 October 1960 Victoria, Australia
Political party	Family First Party
Website	Official website

Steven "Steve" Fielding (born 17 October 1960), was a Senator representing the state of Victoria and the federal parliamentary leader of the Family First Party in Australia. Elected to the Senate at the 2004 federal election on two percent of the Victorian vote, he failed to gain re-election at the 2010 federal election. His term ended 30 June 2011.

Early life

Fielding was born on 17 October 1960, in the Australian state capital of Melbourne, where he was raised in the suburb of Reservoir. His parents, Shirley and George Fielding, had a large family consisting of 16 children, and Fielding spent much of his childhood sharing a bedroom with five brothers in the family's three-bedroom home. His early education was at the local Keon Park Primary School, while for his secondary education he attended the nearby Merrilands High School.

Academically, Fielding suffered setbacks through an undiagnosed case of dyslexia, and this led to problems studying subjects such as English. Nevertheless, he excelled in Maths, and his high marks in this subject allowed him to graduate with sufficiently high scores to gain entry into the Bachelor of Engineering degree at the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology (RMIT), where he studied electronic engineering. Upon graduating in 1983, Fielding accepted a position at Hewlett-Packard, and later he moved into management at technology firms NEC and Siemens.

Fielding returned to university to undertake a Master of Business Administration (MBA) at Monash University. He completed his degree in 1992, and this led him to move to Wellington, New Zealand, where he worked for Telecom New Zealand in "change management" during a difficult time for the industry, as it was undergoing deregulation. He returned to Australia three years later, in 1995, and upon his return he worked for United Energy, the Australian Yellow Pages, and as a marketing manager at Vision Super.

His first foray into politics came in 2003 when he successfully stood as an Independent candidate for the Knox City Council. Fielding has described the decision to stand as "very last-minute", but others, such as the mayor of the council, Jenny Moore, and then Victorian Labor MP Peter Lockwood, claim that Fielding was very open about his intent to move into Federal politics. Either way, both Lockwood and Labor MP Bob Stensholt have described how Fielding later made inquiries about the possibility of running for one of the major parties prior to joining Family First.

2004 election

Fielding was elected to represent Victoria in the Senate at the 2004 federal election. He is the first representative of the Family First Party to be elected to the Federal Parliament.

Fielding's election was not expected – Family First had only been founded two years prior to the election, and it was not expected to succeed in its first Federal election in the state of Victoria. Like many Senators he gained a quota under the Senate's proportional representation system by receiving preferences from other parties (see Australian electoral system). The Australian Democrats and the Australian Labor Party agreed to swap preferences with Family First. But Fielding benefited from the larger-than-expected surplus of Liberal preferences, and stayed in the count long enough to receive Democrat and Labor preferences, defeating the Australian Greens' candidate David Risstrom for the last Senate place in Victoria. As a result, Fielding was elected with just 2519 first preference votes (0.08%), and his party as a whole received just 56,376 votes (1.9%) for the Federal Senate in Victoria.

When first elected the Howard Government held a slim majority in the Senate, sufficient so that Fielding would only hold the balance of power if one of the government Senators chose to cross the floor. This changed after the 2007 Federal election (the changes of which took effect in 2008) when the balance of power in the Senate shifted to a combination of the five Australian Greens Senators, independent Nick Xenophon and Steve Fielding.

Federal politics

While Family First is generally regarded as a conservative party, Fielding has said that he will not be an automatic supporter of the federal opposition in the Senate. On some issues which he sees as affecting the well-being of families, such as the WorkChoices industrial relations policies, he indicated disagreement with government policies. In February 2009, he told a Senate hearing that he believed divorce added to the impact of global warming because it resulted in people switching to a "resource-inefficient lifestyle".

Balance of power

With some backbenchers being willing to cross the floor, Fielding's vote was important on some of the Howard government's more controversial legislation. His vote ensured the passage of Voluntary student unionism, the overturning of civil unions legislation in the Australian Capital Territory, and changes to media ownership laws. Conversely, his intention to vote "no" ensured the defeat of the Howard government's proposed tightening of asylum seeker laws.

Climate change

In mid-2009 Senator Fielding flew to the US on a self funded trip to discover more about climate change. He came back unconvinced that man made carbon dioxide emissions were the main driver of climate change. He has since voted against the Rudd Government's Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme. Senator Fielding also attended the Copenhagen Climate Conference in December 2009.

Youth allowance

In 2009 Senator Fielding teamed up with the coalition to defeat the Rudd Government's proposed changes to the youth allowance system. Senator Fielding said the changes were unfair to rural and regional students and that it would leave 26,000 students worse off.

Alcohol

Senator Fielding opposed the Rudd Government's alcopops tax. He argued that taxing ready to drink alcohol beverages wouldn't put an end to binge drinking. Since then the Senator has campaigned hard for the government to act on Australia's binge drinking culture.

Stimulus package

Following the global financial crisis the Rudd Government passed an economic stimulus package with the help of the Family First. As part of the deal Senator Fielding secured a $200 million jobs fund called 'Get Communities Working'.

Voluntary Student Unionism

At the end of his campaign in support the Howard government's Voluntary Student Unionism legislation, the walls of Fielding's office were vandalised with pro-union graffiti.

Luxury car tax

An increase to the luxury car tax was defeated in the Senate on 4 September 2008, with Fielding joining the coalition in blocking the budget legislation. It was passed after Fielding negotiated exemptions for farmers and tourism operators.

Considered changing parties

In early 2008, Fielding reportedly considered breaking away from Family First to establish a new political party, inviting Tim Costello and other "big names" to join him. The revelations came after Fielding changed his position on abortion, after being rebuffed by his party for taking a softer approach.

ISP level content filtering

Steve Fielding has given conditional support to the mandatory ISP level filtering scheme. A spokesperson for Family First indicated that the party would want X18+ rated and refused classification (RC) content banned for everyone, including adults. Senator Fielding's support for Internet censorship in Australia is not currently reported on his official website.

Same-sex marriage

Fielding has compared same-sex marriages to incest.

"A bloke cannot marry his brother; it is not right. A woman cannot marry their sister; it is not right. A bloke cannot marry a bloke because it is not right, and a female cannot marry a female because it is not right. I don't support this."

Paid Parental Leave Scheme

In June 2010, during the Senate discussion on the proposed Paid Parental Leave Scheme, Fielding suggested “some women may rort the scheme by deliberately falling pregnant and then having a late-term abortion”. He was subsequently criticised by all sides of Australian politics for these comments.

Legislation

Senator Fielding has introduced the following legislation into Parliament:

• Protecting Problem Gamblers Bill 2009

• Keeping Jobs from Going Offshore (Protection of Personal Information) Bill 2009

• Britt Lapthorne Bill 2009

• Removing Branding from Cigarette Packs Bill 2009

• Keeping Banks Accountable Bill 2009

• Removal of Excessive Super Bill 2009

• Easy Comparison of Grocery Prices Bill 2008

• Poker Machine Harm Minimisation Bill 2008

• Poker Machine Harm Reduction Tax Bill 2008

• Alcohol Toll Reduction Bill 2007

• Restoring Family Work Balance Bill 2007

• Fair Bank and Credit Card Fees Bill 2007

• Predatory Pricing Bill 2007

• Creeping Acquisitions 2007 Bill

Stunts

Fielding's use of publicity stunts has been commented on by The Sydney Morning Herald. Fielding joined protesting pensioners in May 2008, who brought traffic to a standstill in the Melbourne CBD, when he and others took their shirts off in the style of the cab drivers who successfully stripped for increased cab security, to demand an increase in the Pension from the government, of an extra $70 to $100 a week.

Fielding has also dressed as a giant beer bottle in order to promote Family First's proposed policy to introduce a bottle return scheme.

Personal life

Fielding is a Christian and attends CityLife Church, a large Pentecostal church in Melbourne. On the ABC television programme Q&A he admitted to being a creationist but would not answer whether or not he believes that the Earth is less than 10,000 years old. Fielding and his wife Susan have three children, James, Campbell and Gabrielle. He has claimed that he was sexually abused by a scoutmaster and family friend for two years during his teenage years. No-one has been charged or prosecuted for the alleged offences.

External links

• Official website