1. Stuart Robert was appointed Acting Minister for Education and Youth in December 2021 and was the Member of Parliament for Fadden upon winning the seat at the 2007 federal election, until his resignation in May 2023.
35 Facts About Stuart Robert
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Stuart Robert later served as Assistant Treasurer from August 2018 and in 2021 was appointed to Cabinet as Employment Minister, a role in which he served until the May 2022 general election, when the Coalition lost power.
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Stuart Robert was born in Victoria and spent his early years growing up on a sugar cane farm in Bundaberg, Queensland.
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Stuart Robert completed a Masters in Business Administration at Central Queensland University, a Masters in Information Technology at the Queensland University of Technology and graduated from the University of New South Wales with a Bachelor of Arts with Honours.
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Stuart Robert was later appointed as Assistant Treasurer in the first Morrison Ministry.
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In June 2019, in response to delays and backlogs for children with disability in accessing Early Childhood Early Intervention supports through the NDIS, Stuart Robert directed the National Disability Insurance Agency to provide standardised interim plans to children who have been found eligible for the NDIS, but who are likely to experience a wait time of greater than 50 days.
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Stuart Robert appointed Rebecca Skinner as CEO of Services Australia in March 2020.
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Stuart Robert told Parliament that Services Australia had provided support deploying more than 20 mobile support teams into dozens of hard-to-reach communities, and delivered millions of dollars via thousands of disaster payments to fire-affected residents.
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Stuart Robert noted Services Australia successfully trialed facial verification technology to provide support to those who had lost identity documents.
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Stuart Robert incorrectly claimed in a press conference that it due to a DDoS attack rather than the large number of people trying to log into MyGov.
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Stuart Robert said the new centre would offer upgraded self-service facilities and digital support, appointment-based services, and specialist services made available through video chat.
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In March 2021 Stuart Robert was promoted to the role of Minister for Employment, Workforce, Skills, Small and Family Business.
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Stuart Robert retained responsibility for whole-of-government technology through the Digital Transformation Agency.
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On 6 May 2023 Stuart Robert announced that he would resign from parliament, which he submitted on 18 May 2023.
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Stuart Robert did not return to Canberra for the remainder of his time in office.
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Stuart Robert quit parliament four months before a parliament committee referred him to the National Anti-Corruption Committee over allegations he misused his political office to promote a friends' business.
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On 18 August 2014, Stuart Robert attended an event in Beijing, China, at which a mining deal between Australian company Nimrod Resources and Chinese state-controlled corporation China Minmetals was signed.
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Stuart Robert claimed that the trip was in a "private capacity", and not official government business.
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Prime Minister Turnbull asked his department secretary, Martin Parkinson, to investigate and report on the circumstances of Stuart Robert's visit to China to determine if he had breached ministerial standards of conduct.
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On 12 February 2016, Stuart Robert announced his resignation from the First Turnbull Ministry as part of a broader reshuffle triggered by the resignation of Andrew Robb and Warren Truss.
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Stuart Robert was criticised for his involvement in establishing the illegal Robodebt scheme during his time as minister for government services.
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Stuart Robert defended Robodebt until 2020, when it was found unlawful by Australian courts.
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At the Royal Commission into the Robodebt Scheme, Stuart Robert admitted to lying to the public about the scheme while it was active, stating he chose not to report his personal feelings about flaws within it, and instead defended it out of "cabinet solidarity".
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In March 2017, it was revealed that Stuart Robert would appear at a public hearing of the Queensland Crime and Corruption Commission named Operation Belcarra, inquiring into the possibly illegal conduct of candidates in some local government elections.
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In 2017, it was revealed that GMT Group, a company that Stuart Robert had founded, had been awarded government contracts worth millions of dollars.
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However, because Stuart Robert had been re-elected to Parliament after relinquishing his interests in the company, there was no possibility of the previous elections being challenged in the High Court.
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In October 2018, a newspaper revealed Stuart Robert had joined a business selling cryotherapy devices.
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Stuart Robert said he did not realise the background of the company's founder until contacted by the media.
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Stuart Robert resigned his director's position after two and a half weeks.
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Cryo Australia was liquidated shortly thereafter and Stuart Robert reportedly lost a huge sum of money.
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Stuart Robert, as acting education minister, vetoed six grants in the humanities as, in his own view, failing the national interest tests for the grant.
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Stuart Robert was criticised by academics and politicians for interference with expert evaluation, for the delay in making his decision, and for announcing it "under cover" of Christmas Eve.
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In 2022, allegations were made that in 2017 and 2018, Stuart Robert had secretly given advice to a firm called Synergy 360 on how its clients could win government contracts.
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Investigative journalist Nick McKenzie revealed in October 2024 that Stuart Robert had been leveraging his work as Australia's inaugural digital minister as part of a $500 million venture to build a giant data centre to store defence secrets and other sensitive government information.
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Stuart Robert has been married to his wife Chantelle since 1996, and has three sons.