Eric Abetz

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Eric Abetz (2014)

Eric Abetz (born January 25, 1958 in Stuttgart ) is an Australian politician of German descent. He is a member of the Liberal Party and has been a Senate member for Tasmania since 1994 .

Career

Abetz's parents emigrated with their six children from Germany to Tasmania in 1961, where the father had found work with the predecessor of Hydro Tasmania . Abetz studied art and law after graduating from the University of Tasmania in Hobart . After graduating with a Bachelor of Arts and Bachelor of Laws , he settled in Hobart as a lawyer.

politics

Abetz has been a member of the Liberals since 1976, and from 1990 to 1994 he was chairman of the party's Tasmanian national association. After Brian Archer's resignation, the Tasmanian Parliament elected him on February 22, 1994 as his successor in the Australian Senate. Abetz was able to maintain this mandate in the 1998 , 2004 , 2010 and 2016 elections .

Prime Minister John Howard appointed Abetz to his government in October 1998, where he was Secretary of State or Minister for various areas, most recently from January 2006 to December 2007 as the successor to Ian Macdonald for fisheries, forestry and nature conservation. After losing the parliamentary election in 2007, Abetz moved to the top of the liberal Senate faction: initially as deputy chairman Nick Minchin , he took over his office in May 2010. Abetz was also a member of the shadow cabinet . During Malcolm Turnbull's first term as leader of the Liberals, he was part of a group of influential party politicians who resigned in September 2009 in protest of his support for an emissions trading agreement to reduce emissions into the atmosphere, which was instrumental in overthrowing Turnbull led the following month.

After winning the 2013 parliamentary election , Abetz was again a member of the cabinet as Minister of Labor under Prime Minister Tony Abbott . He retained his leadership position in the Senate, now as the highest government representative in the House of Lords. He was, along with Kevin Andrews and Mathias Cormann , the premier's most important supporter; the Sydney Morning Herald referred to the three as "Abbots Praetorians ". A few days after he was overthrown by Malcolm Turnbull in September 2015, Abetz lost his ministerial office to Michaelia Cash and was downgraded to backbencher . George Brandis took over his position in the Senate .

Positions

Abetz sees himself as a liberal in the tradition of Robert Menzies . He is a proponent of using nuclear power to generate energy . Abetz's relationship with environmentalists is just as notoriously bad as that with the unions , so in an article in the Daily Telegraph from summer 2015 he was compared to the figure of Montgomery Burns from the television series The Simpsons . Instead of trade unionists as representatives of the workforce, Abetz prefers the state fair work ombudsman located at the Ministry of Labor .

In terms of social policy, Abetz represents very conservative values ​​based on his Christian attitude, so he can be counted among the religious right . He is an active member of the Christian Reformed Church , a Reformed church that advocates a literal interpretation of the Bible. Abetz rejects abortions as well as same-sex marriages or the granting of active euthanasia . One of his longstanding supporters is Lyle Shelton, who was the managing director of the Australian Christian Lobby until 2018 . The climate is Abetz skeptical opposite: Stand in 2016, he took the view is that of a global warming resulting problems by itself would govern.

family

Eric Abetz's older brother, Peter , is also a Liberal politician and a former member of the Lower House of Western Australia . The grandfather of the two was the forest scientist and university professor Karl Abetz , whose brother, the Nazi diplomat Otto Abetz, was accordingly a great-uncle; the maternal grandfather was a cousin of Erwin Rommel . Abetz is widowed, his wife Michelle died of cancer in early 2019. He has three grown children.

literature

Web links

Commons : Eric Abetz  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Emma Rodgers: Senior Liberals desert Turnbull. ABC , November 16, 2009, accessed March 8, 2019. (English)
  2. ↑ James Massola, Tom Allard: How it happened - the Abbott-Turnbull leadership change. Sydney Morning Herald, September 16, 2015, accessed March 8, 2019. (English)
  3. ↑ Melissa Clarke, Dan Conifer: Malcolm Turnbull announces new Cabinet in “process of renewal,” drops Joe Hockey, Eric Abetz. ABC, September 20, 2015, accessed March 8, 2019. (English)
  4. ↑ George Brandis on the Australian Parliament website, accessed March 8, 2019. (English)
  5. ^ Speech by Abetz in the Senate of November 30, 2017 in Hansard , accessed on March 8, 2019.
  6. ↑ Darrin Barnett: Mr Burns and Mr Abetz - can you spot the difference .... The Daily Telegraph, July 16, 2015, accessed March 8, 2019. (English)
  7. ↑ Eric Abetz and the "Fascist Forester". Description of the family relationships according to information from Walter Abetz, a brother of the two, on the blog of Karl Stevens, accessed on March 8, 2019.
  8. ^ Peter Abetz points to positive legacy of his high-ranking Nazi great-uncle. The Guardian , August 5, 2015, accessed March 8, 2019. (English)
  9. ^ Senator Eric Abetz's wife dies of cancer. Sydney Morning Herald, March 1, 2019, accessed March 8, 2019.
personal data
SURNAME Abetz, Eric
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German-Australian politician (Liberal Party of Australia)
DATE OF BIRTH January 25, 1958
PLACE OF BIRTH Stuttgart