Nick Minchin

Nicholas Hugh Minchin (born 15 April 1953) is an Australian former politician and former Australian Consul-General in New York, USA.

Minchin was a staff member for the Liberal Party's Federal Secretariat 1977–83, Deputy Federal Director of the Liberal Party in 1983, South Australian State Director and Campaign Director of the Liberal Party 1985–93.

He previously served as a Liberal member of the Australian Senate representing South Australia from July 1993 to June 2011, and a former cabinet minister in the Howard government.

Minchin was born in Sydney and was educated at the Australian National University, Canberra, where he gained degrees in law and economics.

Minchin attended Knox Grammar School and spent a year in the United States as an exchange student with AFS International Scholarships.

While at university, he was a resident of Burgmann College at the same time as Peter Garrett.

He was a solicitor before entering politics.

On 13 March 1993, Minchin was elected to the Australian Senate for South Australia, with his term starting on 1 July.

Minchin was a member of the Opposition Shadow Ministry 1994–96, holding the position of Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Opposition, John Howard.

In 1995 Minchin submitted a dissenting Senate report on the tobacco industry and the costs of tobacco-related illness that disputed the committee's statements that it believes cigarettes are addictive and that passive smoking is harmful.

Minchin claimed the tobacco industry was over-regulated.

He also disagreed with the conclusions about the addictiveness of nicotine and the harmfulness of passive smoking:

He was Parliamentary Secretary to the Prime Minister John Howard 1996–97, Special Minister of State and Minister Assisting the Prime Minister 1997–98, and Minister for Industry, Science and Resources 1998–2001, with a seat in the Cabinet.

As Minister for Industry Science and Resources (1998-2001), Minchin became the first Commonwealth minister to have had responsibility for the entire nuclear fuel cycle.

He was Minister for Finance and Administration from November 2001 until the defeat of the Howard government at the 2007 federal election.

Until that election he also held the posts of Leader of the Government in the Senate and Vice-President of the Executive Council.

Minchin was a right faction leader in the Liberal Party, and supported the abolition of Australia's compulsory voting system, on the stated basis that "compulsory voting is a fundamental breach of ... civil liberties".

He supported states' rights in Cabinet.

As Leader of the Government in the Senate he played a significant role in pursuing and defending its reforms of the Senate committee system, implemented in 2006 following his government's success in securing a majority of Senate seats at the 2004 election.

In March 2006, Minchin received extensive media coverage when he highlighted the dilemma his government faced in the field of industrial relations and aired his views about future policy proposals.

Speaking at a conference of the H. R. Nicholls Society where he told the audience that the coalition "knew its reform to WorkChoices were not popular but the process of change must continue", and that "there is still a long way to go... awards, the IR commission, all the rest of it...", he went on to say "The fact is the great majority of the Australian people do not support what we are doing on industrial relations. They violently disagree."

In 2007, Minchin admitted to smoking cannabis at high school and university.

In a March 2007 letter to the founder of Clean Up Australia, Ian Kiernan, Minchin expressed doubts that climate change was caused by human activity.

In the letter, Minchin cited the writings of the Canadian newspaper columnist Lawrence Solomon, who in turn cited the disputed theories of Danish scientist Henrik Svensmark.

Minchin said that the ETS bill was "the work of madman" and an "abomination", and observed that "Mr Rudd's arrogance and vanity in wanting to lead the world in cutting CO2 emissions is really sickening".

Minchin campaigned against an emissions trading scheme (ETS) bill.

On 22 September 2008, the parliamentary leader of the Liberal Party, Malcolm Turnbull, appointed Minchin as Shadow Minister for Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy, and Leader of the Opposition in the Senate.

Minchin had been previously Shadow Minister for Defence.

A 2009 article in The Australian drew parallels between his stance on tobacco and his stance as a global warming denial.

However, on 26 November 2009, Minchin resigned from the shadow cabinet in protest at Turnbull's position on the government's emissions trading scheme.

Turnbull later stated on ABC Radio that, according to Minchin, "the world is not warming, it's cooling and the climate change issue is part of a vast left-wing conspiracy to deindustrialise the world".

Minchin announced on 24 March 2010 that he would not be contesting his Senate seat at the next Australian federal election.

His son, Oliver was seriously injured in a boat accident while training with the Australian Defence Force Academy in February 2010.

His term ended on 30 June 2011.

He also resigned his Opposition portfolios and addressed the media saying that: "I love politics. This is not an easy decision to make ... when something like that happens and when one of your children, quite frankly, has a near-death experience, it does make you reassess your life and your priorities".

His appointment followed the controversial termination of the Labor-appointed nominee to the position, Steve Bracks (the former Premier of Victoria), by the incoming Abbott government in September 2013.

On 14 February 2014 Minchin was appointed to the role of Australian Consul-General in New York, which he held until May 2017.

In 2018 Minchin was appointed to a five-year term on the Foreign Investment Review Board.

Minchin has been a strong proponent of privatisation and wholesale labour market deregulation.

He has defended the full privatisation of Telstra, and argued that the Commonwealth should sell its Telstra shares to buy a portfolio of other income-earning investments rather than spend the profits on national infrastructure.