Steve Fielding

Steve Fielding
Senator for Victoria
Incumbent
Assumed office  1 July 2004
Born	17 October 1960 (1960-10-17) (age 49) Victoria, Australia
Nationality	Australian
Political party	Family First Party
Website	Official website

Steve Fielding (born 17 October 1960), is a Victorian Senator and the Federal parliamentary leader of the Family First Party in Australia.

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.^[1] His early education was at the local Keon Park Primary School, while for his secondary education he attended the nearby Merrilands High School.^[2]

Academically, Fielding suffered setbacks through an undiagnosed case of dyslexia, and this led to problems studying subjects such as English.^[3] 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.^[1][4] Upon graduating in 1983, Fielding accepted a position at Hewlett-Packard, and later he moved into management at technology firms NEC and Siemens.^[2]

Fielding returned to university to undertake a Master of Business Administration (MBA) at Monash. 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.^[2][5] He returned to Australian 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.^[1][2]

His first foray into politics came in 2003 when he successfully stood as an Independent candidate for the Knox City Council.^[1] 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.^[1] Either way, both Lockwood and Liberal 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.^[1]

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.^[6]

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.^[1] 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.^[7] 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.^[8]

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.^[1] This changed after the 2008 Federal election when the balance of power in the Senate shifted to a combination of the five Australian Greens Senators, independent Nick Xenophon and Steve Fielding.^[8]

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"^[9].

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,^[10] the overturning of civil unions legislation in the Australian Capital Territory,^[11] and changes to media ownership laws.^[12] Conversely, his intention to vote "no" ensured the defeat of the Howard government's proposed tightening of asylum seeker laws.^[13]

Voluntary Student Unionism

Fielding's decision to support the Howard government's Voluntary Student Unionism legislation resulted in his office being targeted by anti-VSU activists, who vandalised the walls with pro-union graffiti.^[10]

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.^[14]

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.^[15] The revelations came after Fielding changed his position on abortion, after being rebuffed by his party for taking a softer approach.^[16]

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.^[17] 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.^[18]

"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."

Stunts

Steve Fielding is renowned for his publicity stunts.^[19][20] 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 successful 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.^[21][22]

Personal life

Fielding is an evangelical Christian and attends CityLife Church, a large Pentecostal church in Melbourne.^[23] 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 was ever charged or prosecuted for the alleged offences.^[24][25]

References

External links

• Official website