Philip Ross Lightfoot was an Australian politician.
18 Facts About Ross Lightfoot
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Ross Lightfoot was a Liberal member of the Australian Senate from 1997 to 2008, representing the state of Western Australia.
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Ross Lightfoot worked as a mounted policeman between 1959 and 1962.
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In 1972, Ross Lightfoot became a pastoralist and grazier, a line of employment he subsequently occupied for twenty years.
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Ross Lightfoot retired from the Legislative Assembly in 1989, but made a comeback in 1993, representing the North Metropolitan Region in the Legislative Council.
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In 1997, Western Australian Senator John Panizza died, and Ross Lightfoot, having been selected to fill the vacancy, moved to federal politics.
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Ross Lightfoot soon became a controversial figure within the party, and was rebuked by Prime Minister John Howard for telling the Senate that Aborigines in their native state were the lowest colour on the civilisation spectrum.
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Ross Lightfoot was one of a small group of Liberal MPs willing to make a preference deal with controversial MP Pauline Hanson and her One Nation party.
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Ross Lightfoot's comments led to numerous moves to oust him from membership of his own party, but he hung on, as he was seen to represent a movement of rural conservatives in Western Australia.
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Ross Lightfoot was an active campaigner for the rights of white Zimbabwean farmers displaced by the regime of Robert Mugabe.
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In 2003, Lightfoot was involved in an altercation on the floor of the House of Representatives during a visit by President of the United States George W Bush.
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The newspapers published photographs of Ross Lightfoot appearing with Kurdish militants wielding an AK-47.
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Ross Lightfoot strenuously denied the allegations and threatened legal action against the newspapers carrying the story.
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Ross Lightfoot denied handling the money personally, saying he merely witnessed the money changing hands.
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The newspapers in turn refused to retract the reports and accused Ross Lightfoot of contradicting himself.
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Who's Who in Australia reports Ross Lightfoot as being a life fellow of the International Biographical Association, a vanity press publication.
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Ross Lightfoot stated that he considered Cormann an "inappropriate person" to replace him.
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Ross Lightfoot died on 11 January 2024, at the age of 87.