Peter King (Australian politician)

Peter Edward King (born 29 June 1952), Australian politician, was a Liberal Party of Australia member of the Australian House of Representatives from November 2001 to October 2004, representing the seat of Wentworth, New South Wales. King is also a barrister, advocate and author.

Early life

He was born in Bingara, New South Wales, and was educated at the Shore School, where he was School Captain and Captain of the GPS Rugby 1st XV, Sydney University, where he resided at St. Paul's College, and Oxford University, where he gained an MA and was selected as a Rugby Blue against Cambridge. He was Rhodes Scholar for New South Wales in 1975.

Career

King was a barrister before entering politics. He was a Judicial Member of the Administrative Decisions Tribunal of NSW 1995-2001 and Chair of the Australian Heritage Commission 1998-2001 and of the World Heritage Commission 2000-01 and was President of the World Heritage Bureau from 2001–02. He is the author of Limitation of Liability in Australian Maritime Law (1991), a collection of his poetry called Bus Stop Poetry (2013), and a critique of climate change policy called The Challenge of the Commons (2015).^[1] He was a member of the Woollahra Municipal Council and was Mayor 1990-91. He was NSW State President of the Liberal Party 1989-92. Throughout the 1990s King was a leading advocate of the Australian monarchy, successfully opposing the push for an Australian republic.^[2]

Final campaign

In 2003, after only two years in the federal Parliament, King was challenged for his Liberal endorsement in Wentworth by Malcolm Turnbull, a wealthy merchant banker, Federal Treasurer of the Liberal Party and former head of the Australian Republican Movement. After a prolonged and very acrimonious campaign, Turnbull won Liberal endorsement for the 2004 election. After resigning from the Liberal Party, King stood as an independent and received 18% of the primary vote with Turnbull winning with 42% of the primary vote.^[3] For standing against a preselected Liberal party member, King was banned from the Liberal Party for ten years. His wife Fiona, daughter of former National Party leader Ian Sinclair, was banned for five years.^[4] In 2015 King re-joined the Liberal Party.

Further career

In 2004 King returned to a successful career as an advocate, especially in cases for farmers against banks during the Millennium drought between 2001 and 2009 helping to keep many farmers on their farms; and in commercial and constitutional cases including the landmark cases of Spencer v Commonwealth (2010)^[5] and Gaynor v Chief of Defence Force (2015).^[6] King was also elected the President of Sydney College of Divinity in 2010 a position he still holds.^[7]

References