1. Mitchell Peter Fifield was born on 16 January 1967 and is an Australian politician and diplomat who last served as the Permanent Representative of Australia to the United Nations.
13 Facts About Mitch Fifield
1. 2.
Mitch Fifield previously served as a Senator for Victoria from 2004 to 2019, representing the Liberal Party.
3.
Mitch Fifield was a government minister in the Abbott, Turnbull, and Morrison governments, serving as Assistant Minister for Social Services, Manager of Government Business in the Senate, Minister for Communications, and Minister for the Arts.
4.
Between 1985 and 1987, Mitch Fifield served for three years in the Australian Army Reserve Psychology Corps.
5.
Between 1988 and 1992, Mitch Fifield was a Senior Research Officer for the NSW Minister for Transport and Sydney's Olympic Bid, Bruce Baird; a Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Industrial Relations' Policy Adviser, National's MP John Anderson during 1992; a Senior Policy Adviser to the Victorian Minister for Transport, Alan Brown from 1992 to 1996; and Senior Political Adviser to the Federal Treasurer, Peter Costello, from 1996 to 2003.
6.
Since 1996, Mitch Fifield held a number of Liberal Party positions, including being a delegate to the Liberal Party Victorian State Council, since 1996; a delegate to the Liberal Party Policy Assembly, in 1996 and since 2004; a delegate to the Liberal Party Goldstein Electorate Council, between 1995 and 2003.
7.
On 31 March 2004, Mitch Fifield was appointed by the Parliament of Victoria under section 15 of the Australian Constitution to fill the casual vacancy in the Australian Senate caused by the resignation in February 2004 of Richard Alston.
8.
Mitch Fifield replaced the 29th Australian Prime Minister, Malcolm Turnbull, as Minister for Communications, in September 2015.
9.
Mitch Fifield offered his resignation from the frontbench on 22 August 2018, during the events of the Liberal Party of Australia leadership spill.
10.
In May 2019, following the Coalition's victory at the 2019 federal election, it was announced that Mitch Fifield would be appointed to succeed Gillian Bird as Permanent Representative of Australia to the United Nations.
11.
Mitch Fifield stepped down from cabinet as a result, and resigned from the Senate on 16 August 2019.
12.
Mitch Fifield was accused of "mansplaining" by the Australian senator Katy Gallagher during a debate in a Senate committee hearing regarding social services legislation, which subsequently went viral.
13.
Ultimately, Mitch Fifield posited the use of a phrase "womansplaining" in the same context, to which Gallagher replied that mansplaining was "a term that's used".