1. Nicholas Hugh Minchin was born on 15 April 1953 and is an Australian former politician and former Australian Consul-General in New York, USA.
19 Facts About Nick Minchin
1. 2.
Nick Minchin 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.
3.
Nick Minchin was born in Sydney and was educated at the Australian National University, Canberra, where he gained degrees in law and economics.
4.
On 13 March 1993, Nick Minchin was elected to the Australian Senate for South Australia, with his term starting on 1 July.
5.
Nick Minchin was Minister for Finance and Administration from November 2001 until the defeat of the Howard government at the 2007 federal election.
6.
Nick Minchin announced on 24 March 2010 that he would not be contesting his Senate seat at the next Australian federal election.
7.
On 14 February 2014 Nick Minchin was appointed to the role of Australian Consul-General in New York, which he held until May 2017.
8.
Nick Minchin's appointment followed the controversial termination of the Labor-appointed nominee to the position, Steve Bracks, by the incoming Abbott government in September 2013.
9.
In 2018 Nick Minchin was appointed to a five-year term on the Foreign Investment Review Board.
10.
Nick Minchin has been a strong proponent of privatisation and wholesale labour market deregulation.
11.
Nick Minchin 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.
12.
In March 2006, Nick 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.
13.
In 1995 Nick 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.
14.
Nick Minchin disagreed with the conclusions about the addictiveness of nicotine and the harmfulness of passive smoking:.
15.
Senator Nick Minchin believes these claims are not yet conclusively proved.
16.
In 2007, Nick Minchin admitted to smoking cannabis at high school and university.
17.
However, on 26 November 2009, Nick Minchin resigned from the shadow cabinet in protest at Turnbull's position on the government's emissions trading scheme.
18.
Nick Minchin is a distant cousin of Australian comedian Tim Minchin.
19.
Nick Minchin's wife, Kerry Wakefield, is a journalist and blogger who writes for The Spectator and is on the advisory council of Advance Australia.