1. John Philip Faulkner was born on 12 April 1954 and is an Australian former Labor Party politician who was a Senator for New South Wales from 1989 to 2015.
17 Facts About John Faulkner
1. 2.
John Faulkner was a Cabinet Minister in the Keating, Rudd and Gillard governments.
3.
In 1994, John Faulkner was moved to the position of Minister for the Environment, which he held until Labor's defeat in 1996.
4.
John Faulkner later served as the Leader of the Labor Party in the Senate from 1996 to 2005, and returned to Cabinet upon Labor's election in 2007, after Kevin Rudd made him Vice-President of the Executive Council and Special Minister of State.
5.
John Faulkner later served as Minister for Defence from 2009 to 2010, when he retired from frontline politics.
6.
John Faulkner became the Father of the Australian Senate in 2014, and retired from Parliament altogether a year later by way of resignation, and is considered by some as an elder statesman.
7.
John Faulkner was born in Leeton, New South Wales on 12 April 1954, attended Pennant Hills High School, and was educated at Macquarie University, Sydney, where he graduated in Arts and Education.
8.
John Faulkner was at various times Shadow Minister for Social Security, Public Administration and Home Affairs.
9.
John Faulkner was a key Labor strategist in the 1998,2001 and 2004 federal elections, and was a particularly close advisor to Mark Latham during the 2004 election.
10.
John Faulkner became the first Labor Senate leader who did not become Government Senate leader since Don Willesee.
11.
In October 2006 John Faulkner was elected as the National President of the Australian Labor Party until February 2008 and chaired the Labor's National Conference in 2007.
12.
John Faulkner introduced new guidelines reducing the overt political control of government funded advertising.
13.
On 9 June 2009, John Faulkner was sworn in the Minister for Defence, replacing Joel Fitzgibbon, who had stepped down on 4 June.
14.
John Faulkner retained this portfolio in the First Gillard government until the 2010 federal election following an earlier announcement that he would step down as Defence Minister and return to the backbench.
15.
In 2014 John Faulkner began a process of reforms that sought to stamp out perceived corruption and factional infighting within the New South Wales branch of the Australian Labor Party.
16.
John Faulkner announced on 30 April 2014 that he would not seek re-election and would be retiring at the end of his term on 30 June 2017.
17.
John Faulkner was formerly married to fellow Labor politician Sandra Nori and they have two children.