Robert Edward Borbidge was born on 12 August 1954 and is a former Australian politician who served as the 35th Premier of Queensland from 1996 to 1998.
17 Facts About Rob Borbidge
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Rob Borbidge was the leader of the Queensland branch of the National Party, and was the last member of that party to serve as premier.
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Rob Borbidge's parents owned a sheep property and were attracted to Queensland by Premier Joh Bjelke-Petersen's abolition of death duties, moving to the Gold Coast.
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Rob Borbidge received the important portfolio of Tourism in 1989 and was briefly made Minister for Police, Emergency Services and Tourism by Ahern's successor Russell Cooper before he lost office at the hands of the Labor Party's Wayne Goss in the 1989 election.
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Rob Borbidge was made Shadow Minister for Small Business, Manufacturing and Regional Development.
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Rob Borbidge harnessed the ground swell of opposition arising from this and other controversial decisions to encourage a large protest vote.
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Rob Borbidge's government imitated that of Goss when it initiated sweeping changes in the public service when it won office.
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Rob Borbidge was criticised for attempting to stack the public service, but he counter-alleged that the public service was already subject to severe Labor bias.
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The Rob Borbidge government initiated changes to the industrial relations system by introducing Queensland Workplace Agreements, similar to the Australian Workplace Agreements later created under the Federal Liberal government of John Howard.
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Rob Borbidge supported Howard in his efforts to reform Australian gun ownership laws after the Port Arthur massacre, a move that brought him unpopularity in some traditional National Party quarters.
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When in 1997 the High Court of Australia expanded the recently introduced concept of Native title in bringing down the Wik decision, Rob Borbidge argued that Howard's proposed changes to the Native Title Act did not go far enough in abolishing native title from pastoral leases.
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The Rob Borbidge government was almost immediately beset by scandal when it was revealed that, during the Mundingburra by-election campaign, Rob Borbidge and Cooper had signed a secret Memorandum of Understanding with the Queensland Police Union guaranteeing the QPU the repeal of unpopular Goss government measures, the power of veto over senior police appointments, and increased police funding, in return for a donation of $20,000 to the by-election campaign.
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The cynical mood in the electorate that Rob Borbidge had harnessed to win office now began to turn against him, as he endeavoured to satisfy both the hard-line conservatives deserting the Nationals, and the urban Liberal supporters who detested Hanson and her views.
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Amid this severe defeat, Rob Borbidge created controversy when he immediately resigned from parliament, forcing a by-election in Surfers Paradise.
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Rob Borbidge was premier for only two of his nine years as National Party leader.
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Rob Borbidge was featured on the 23 April 2013 episode of The Daily Show with Jon Stewart for his stance on gun control following the Port Arthur massacre.
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In 2013 Rob Borbidge became chairman of the aero-medical organisation Careflight.