Damian Drum

Damian Kevin Drum (born 28 July 1960) is an Australian politician who has represented Murray and Nicholls in the Australian House of Representatives since the 2016 federal election as a member of The Nationals.

At the same time, he embarked on a football career and was drafted to the then-VFL's Geelong Football Club in 1981.

Over the next nine years, he played 63 games for Geelong.

While playing football, he also operated his own business selling sheds and garages.

He retired from the VFL at the end of 1989, and joined Victorian Football Association club Werribee in 1991.

In 1993, he quit his business and took up a coaching position with Port Melbourne in the VFA, leading the club to a grand final loss against his former club, Werribee.

In 1994, he moved to Sydney, taking up a position as the assistant coach of the Sydney Swans in the Australian Football League (AFL), under senior coach Ron Barassi.

Drum served for five years in the role of assistant coach at the Sydney Swans.

Drum was approached by Fremantle, which had not renewed the contract of their first senior coach, Gerard Neesham, who was sacked at the end of the 1998 season, where Fremantle under Neesham finished fifteenth (second-last) position on the ladder.

Drum had been one of the most highly anticipated coaching recruits of the season, and some were surprised that he signed with the struggling Dockers.

He had been expected to sign with the Collingwood Football Club the previous year, but the deal had fallen through.

Drum then became the senior coach of Fremantle Football Club, when he replaced Neesham.

Drum coached Fremantle for three seasons, during which the side suffered from a lack of success.

He is also a former Australian rules footballer and coach, most notably as senior coach of the Fremantle Football Club in the Australian Football League from 1999 to 2001.

In his first season, the club finished fifteenth (second-last) at the end of the 1999 season.

There was a slight improvement in his second season, in which Fremantle won several high-profile games; still, the club struggled, finishing twelfth at the end of the 2000 season.

The Liberal and National parties had broken off their Coalition in 2000, and hence fought the 2002 election separately.

As a result, the Nationals had to organise a shadow cabinet of their own.

Drum soon found himself Deputy Leader of the National Party in the Legislative Council, party Whip, and Shadow Minister for Youth Affairs, Education Services, Sport, Recreation, Racing, Consumer Affairs and the Commonwealth Games.

He turned to a life in politics after being sacked as Fremantle's coach during the 2001 season.

Drum was born in Shepparton.

After graduating from high school, he became a carpenter and joiner, running his own shed construction business for several years.

However, it was the 2001 season, in which Fremantle lost their first nine games of the season, that sealed Drum's fate.

Drum was sacked after the club's round-nine loss to the Sydney Swans, and was replaced by former Fremantle player and inaugural club captain Ben Allan as caretaker senior coach of Fremantle Football Club for the rest of the 2001 season, who did not fare much better, with the Dockers still winless after Round 17 in a 22-round season.

At the end of the 2001 season, Allan was replaced by Chris Connolly as Fremantle Football Club senior coach.

After losing the Fremantle job, Drum moved back to Victoria and took up a position as senior coach of the Bendigo Diggers in the Victorian Football League.

The situation was similar to Fremantle, where the Diggers finished the season winless, with a single draw against the Murray Kangaroos.

Drum is a former member for the North Western Province, and later the Northern Victoria Region, in the Legislative Council of Victoria between 2002 and 2016.

At the end of the 2002 season, Drum decided to retire from football and move into politics, successfully seeking Nationals pre-selection for the Victorian Legislative Council seat of North Western Province at the 2002 state election.

Drum was first elected to parliament in 2002 during the Labor Party landslide, in which many seats across the state fell to the minority government, and numerous shadow ministers lost their seats.

Drum was elected despite the losses sustained by the conservative parties, with the Liberal Party losing a net total of 26 seats while the Nationals suffered a net loss of only one seat.

Despite being a newly elected member with no previous political experience, Drum advanced quickly in the Nationals' ranks.

From 2003 onward, he was a member of the Environment and Natural Resources Committee.

For the 2006 election the Legislative Council underwent major structural changes.

Drum's previous seat of North-West Region was replaced by the much larger Northern Victoria Region and preferential-proportional (multi-seat) rather than majority-preferential (one seat per election) voting.

Drum was easily elected with a quota in his own right and was the only National Party member for the region.

Drum served as the Victorian Minister for Sports and Veterans Affairs in the Napthine Ministry from March to December 2014.

In March 2014, Drum was appointed Minister for Sports and Veterans Affairs in the Napthine coalition government, serving until the government was defeated at the 2014 state election.

On 11 April 2016, the Nationals announced that Drum had been preselected to contest the federal seat of Murray at the 2016 federal election.

Drum served as the Assistant Minister to the Deputy Prime Minister in the Second Turnbull Ministry between 20 December 2017 and 5 March 2018.