Shaoquett Chaher Moselmane was born on 1965 and is an Australian former politician who was a member of the New South Wales Legislative Council from 2009 to 2023 as a member of the parliamentary New South Wales Labor Party.
23 Facts About Shaoquett Moselmane
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Shaoquett Moselmane was assistant president of the Legislative Council from May 2019 to April 2020.
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Shaoquett Moselmane arrived in Australia from Lebanon in 1977 with his parents, Chaher Mouslimani and Jawaher Mohanna Mouslimani, and ten siblings.
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Shaoquett Moselmane attended Rockdale Public School and James Cook Boys' High School before graduating with a Bachelor of Arts from the University of Sydney.
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Shaoquett Moselmane obtained a Master degree in politics from Macquarie University and went on to complete a Bachelor of Laws at the University of New South Wales.
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In 1995, Moselmane was elected to Rockdale City Council in Sydney's south and served as mayor from 2001 to 2003, from 2005 to 2006, and again in 2009 until his appointment to the Legislative Council.
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Shaoquett Moselmane retired from Rockdale Council at the 2012 NSW Local Government Elections.
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On 3 December 2009, Shaoquett Moselmane was appointed to the Legislative Council to fill a vacancy created by the resignation of Henry Tsang.
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Shaoquett Moselmane was the first Muslim member of the New South Wales Parliament.
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In September 2012, Shaoquett Moselmane instituted the Multicultural and Indigenous Media Awards and in June 2014, he launched the National Indigenous Human Rights Awards.
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On 7 May 2019, Shaoquett Moselmane was elected as Assistant President of the NSW Legislative Council.
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Shaoquett Moselmane lost lost Labor preselection at the 2023 New South Wales state election.
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In March 2013, Shaoquett Moselmane made a parliamentary speech in which he described Gaza as "the world's largest open-air prison camp" and praised resistance groups who fought against the Israeli occupation in Lebanon, comparing them to resistance against Nazi Germany.
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Also in 2013, Shaoquett Moselmane made a speech in support of a motion by students at the University of Sydney asking the university to boycott the Israeli university Technion.
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Labor leader John Robertson said Shaoquett Moselmane's views were "not in accordance with Labor policy".
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In 2017 Shaoquett Moselmane retweeted former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke.
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In 2019 and 2020, Shaoquett Moselmane drew criticism for his links to figures connected with the Chinese Communist Party.
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The Sydney Morning Herald reported that Shaoquett Moselmane had hired John Zhang as a staff member in 2019.
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In March 2020, Shaoquett Moselmane praised Xi Jinping, General Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party, for his "unswerving leadership" in responding to the COVID-19 pandemic and said that the "combined phenomenal effort of the state and the people in the fight to contain the virus was breath taking".
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Shaoquett Moselmane compared the Chinese response to the Australian government response which he described as "slow, and at times baffling and confused".
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Shaoquett Moselmane was suspended from the New South Wales Labor Party.
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Shaoquett Moselmane returned to parliament on 22 October 2020 after being cleared by the Parliamentary Privileges Committee.
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In November 2020, Shaoquett Moselmane was reinstated in the Labor Party.