Steven Ciobo

Steven Michele Ciobo (born 29 May 1974) is a retired Australian politician who represented the Division of Moncrieff in the House of Representatives from the 2001 federal election until his retirement at the 2019 election.

He was a member of the Liberal National Party of Queensland, and sat with the Liberal Party in federal parliament.

Ciobo was elected to parliament at the 2001 federal election, replacing the retiring Kathy Sullivan in the Division of Moncrieff.

Ciobo has repeatedly called for the introduction of daylight saving for South East Queensland, despite this position being at odds of that of some of his Liberal National Party colleagues in the Queensland Parliament.

In 2005, he urged the government to change the law to strip naturalised Australians of their citizenship if they incite, support or engage in terrorist activity.

In 2006, Ciobo called for the first home owner grant to be doubled, a policy which was adopted by the Rudd government in October 2008 as an economic stimulus measure.

In the lead up to the 2007 federal election, responding to a dare from a local radio station, Ciobo and his wife were thrown into the air on a sling shot bungee at the Surfers Paradise Adrenalin Park.

While hurled up in the air, Ciobo's wife spotted one of her husband's stolen election signs on the balcony of a Surfers Paradise apartment.

The radio station has since posted a video of the dare on YouTube.

After the Coalition lost the 2007 election, Ciobo was made Shadow Minister for Small Business, the Service Economy and Tourism in the Shadow Cabinet of Brendan Nelson.

Nelson promoted him into the shadow ministry despite Ciobo publicly pledging his support for Nelson's opponent, Malcolm Turnbull, in the previous month's leadership ballot.

Ciobo was critical of the merger of the Liberal and National parties in Queensland, telling ABC Local Radio in July 2008: "I don't believe it's going to have a positive effect on a federal level. But at a state level it certainly is going to make a very big difference."

When Turnbull replaced Nelson as leader in September 2008, Ciobo's portfolio was changed to Shadow Minister for Small Business, Independent Contractors, Tourism and the Arts.

In November 2008, Ciobo attacked the Rudd government over Peter Garrett's decision to axe funding for the Australian National Academy of Music, saying the decision was "the latest chapter in bungled Labor decisions that have ended one of Australia's centres of excellence and left students' futures in limbo".

He also said Garrett's move to scrap the Uluru climb would be another setback to the tourism industry which had been hit hard by the global economic downturn.

In December 2009, Tony Abbott won a leadership ballot to replace Turnbull as Leader of the Opposition.

He subsequently demoted Ciobo to the outer frontbench, as the Shadow Minister for Tourism and the Arts and the Shadow Minister for Youth and Sport.

In November 2009, Ciobo introduced his first private members bill as a shadow minister.

The bill proposed changes to the government's producer offset to encourage more local feature film production.

In September 2010, shortly after the 2010 federal election, Opposition Leader Tony Abbott removed Ciobo from the shadow ministry, relegating him to the backbench.

Abbott refused to answer questions on the reason for Ciobo's demotion, other than to say: "There is something of the quality of snakes and ladders about the business of politics."

In an article in The Australian, contributing editor Peter van Onselen speculated the reasons for Ciobo's demotion were that "Abbott has never especially gotten along with Ciobo personally" and that Ciobo was "a Malcolm Turnbull lieutenant."

Van Onselen said the demotion reflected poorly on Abbott because Ciobo is "talented, a good media performer and part of the next generation in the Liberal Party''."

In April 2011, Ciobo called for a radical rethink of the tourism strategy for the Gold Coast, calling on the city to focus on more casinos and glitz.

He said turning Surfers Paradise into a world-class entertainment precinct to rival Las Vegas and Macau was the solution to save the Gold Coast from rising unemployment and economic doom.

In 2011 Ciobo and Labor MP Kelvin Thomson were seconded to the United Nations in New York City for 12 weeks.

Ciobo was a prominent opponent of Andrew Wilkie's plan (initially adopted by the Gillard government but later shelved) to require all poker machine players to set a daily betting limit.

He told a Queensland newspaper the plan "will place the entire population that want to have a $10 flutter within arms' reach of big brother government."

He previously served as Minister for International Development and the Pacific from September 2015 to February 2016, and earlier as a parliamentary secretary in the Abbott government from September 2013 to September 2015 (initially to the Treasurer and later to the Minister for Foreign Affairs and Minister for Trade and Investment).

Ciobo was born and raised in Mareeba, North Queensland, the youngest of three children in an Anglican family.

His parents, Bruno and Joan, ran a tourism business in Cairns.

Ciobo's father was born in Bari, Italy, while his paternal grandfather was born in Valona (Vlorë), which at the time was part of Ottoman Albania.

His maternal grandfather was born in London.

Ciobo graduated in law and commerce from Bond University and earned a master's degree in law from the Queensland University of Technology.

He worked at a food processing factory to help support himself while studying.

While at university he reportedly considered joining Australia's domestic intelligence agency, the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO).

Before entering parliament, Ciobo worked as a consultant with Coopers & Lybrand, as a senior consultant with PricewaterhouseCoopers, and as an adviser to Senator Brett Mason.

Ciobo served as the Minister for Trade, Tourism and Investment in the Turnbull government from February 2016 until his resignation on 21 August 2018 in the wake of the Liberal Party leadership spill earlier that day.

On 1 March 2019 Ciobo announced his decision to retire from politics at the 2019 federal election.

He went on to serve as Minister for Defence Industry, working in conjunction with the Defence Minister, until his resignation in March 2019.