David Shoebridge

David Shoebridge
Member of the New South Wales Legislative Council
Assumed office
7 September 2010
Personal details
Nationality Australian
Political party Greens New South Wales
Residence Woollahra, New South Wales
Alma mater University of Sydney
Occupation Barrister
Website davidshoebridge.org.au

David Martin Shoebridge is an Australian politician. He has been a Greens member of the New South Wales Legislative Council since September 2010, when he was appointed to replace outgoing MLC Sylvia Hale.

Shoebridge's portfolio responsibilities within the Greens include: Forestry; Industrial Relations; Planning & Heritage; Firearms; Justice and Local Government.[1]

Early career

After a brief stint as a cellarman and superintendent for the Royal Agricultural Society, Shoebridge started his career as an associate to Family Court justice Eric Baker.

Shoebridge then went on to become a lawyer and worked six years as a solicitor at Taylor and Scott, a union law firm, and more than seven years as a barrister at Denman Chambers, with a focus on employment, discrimination, industrial and tort law. While no longer practising, he continues to hold a practising certificate as a NSW Barrister.

Political career

Shoebridge outside Parliament House in Sydney

Shoebridge was elected to Woollahra Municipal Council in 2004 and reelected in 2008.[2] He served one term as Deputy Mayor.

He was the Greens candidate for the state seat of Vaucluse in the 2007 state election, outpolling the ALP candidate in the seat held by the then Liberal party leader Peter Debnam.[3]

He was preselected to the first position on the Greens' upper house ticket for the 2011 state election despite not having served in parliament but, after Sylvia Hale resigned from the Legislative Council in September 2010, he was deemed eligible to take her position which allowed him to contest the election as a sitting MP.[4]

On 2 June 2011, Shoebridge took the record for longest speech in the NSW Legislative Council while talking continuously for over five hours and 58 minutes against NSW government legislation which drastically affected public sector wages and conditions, including capping wage rises at a rate less than inflation.[5][6]

Shoebridge has campaigned to curb the use of police drug sniffer dogs and stun guns, and called for independent investigations of police when officers are involved in critical incidents and members of the public are killed or seriously injured.[7][8][9]

In 2012, Shoebridge again advocated on behalf of workers as the NSW government made sweeping changes to the workers compensation system in NSW. Accompanied by the first general strike by fire-fighters since 1956, Shoebridge and the Greens secured amendments to the legislation which meant that fire-fighters and paramedics retained the same cover as police officers.[10][11]

Shoebridge also campaigned on behalf of victims of sexual abuse, calling for a Royal Commission into sexual abuse by the Catholic Church and other institutions, and proposing legislation to overturn the Ellis defence. The campaign reached a level of success with the announcement in November 2012 of a Special Commission of Inquiry into alleged cover-up of Church sexual abuse in the Hunter and a Federal Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse.[12][13][14][15][16]

Another campaign success for Shoebridge came in July 2013 with the abolition of the Game Council NSW by the NSW government. This followed the findings and recommendations of the Dunn Report into the Game Council's governance, called after senior Game Council figures were suspended after allegations of illegal hunting.[17][18]

Shoebridge called for a "comprehensive audit" of firearm owners in NSW after videos were posted in the Shooting Stuff Australia Facebook group and YouTube page that attacked the Greens and leading Muslim community leaders such as the Grand Mufti of Australia. These videos displayed a Greens logo being shot with bullets with fake blood bleeding from the logo. The videos also featured caricatures of the Grand Mufti of Australia with explosives strapped to this figure again being shot at by firearm owners. [19] His call came to nothing.

See also

References

  1. ↑ Greens NSW MPs portfolio responsibilities, as of May 2011
  2. ↑ "Cooper Ward". New South Wales Electoral Commission. 2008. Retrieved 7 September 2010.
  3. ↑ "Election Results: Vaucluse". ABC Elections. Australian Broadcasting Corporation. 2 April 2007. Retrieved 7 September 2010.
  4. ↑ "NSW Greens upper house MP Sylvia Hale quits parliament early". The Australian. 31 August 2010. Retrieved 7 September 2010.
  5. ↑ Nicholls, Sean (3 June 2011). "Time freezes as record-breaking MP speaks for nearly six hours". Sydney Morning Herald. Retrieved 24 December 2011.
  6. ↑ "Govt Announces change to public sector pay cap". NSW Nurses and Midwives' Association. 14 May 2013. Retrieved 8 August 2013.
  7. ↑ "Barely a sniff of trouble, so Greens say it's time to call off the dogs". Sydney Morning Herald. 9 July 2011. Retrieved 24 December 2011.
  8. ↑ Shoebridge, David (28 June 2011). "Taser use on the rise". Davidshoebridge.org.au. Retrieved 24 December 2011.
  9. ↑ "Police face criminal action after report into fatal shooting". PM (ABC Radio). Australian Broadcasting Corporation. 26 June 2013. Retrieved 8 August 2013.
  10. ↑ "Greens help keep emergency workers covered". Echonetdaily. 26 June 2012. Retrieved 8 August 2013.
  11. ↑ "NSW Firefighters strike over workers compensation cuts". PM (ABC Radio). Australian Broadcasting Corporation. 21 June 2012. Retrieved 8 August 2013.
  12. ↑ "Catholic royal commission: David Shoebridge". Radio National. Australian Broadcasting Corporation. 12 November 2012.
  13. ↑ "Is the Ellis Defence moral?". Online Opinion. 6 February 2013. Retrieved 8 August 2013.
  14. ↑ "David Shoebridge on child abuse royal commission". ABC Upper Hunter, Afternoons with Carol Duncan. Australian Broadcasting Corporation. 14 November 2012. Retrieved 8 August 2013.
  15. ↑ "Senior church figures ordered to appear at inquiry". Lateline. Australian Broadcasting Corporation. 13 February 2013. Retrieved 8 August 2013.
  16. ↑ "Premier orders inquiry into church child sex 'cover-up'". The Sydney Morning Herald. 9 November 2012. Retrieved 8 August 2013.
  17. ↑ "Blow to Game Council as leaders charged over hunt". The Sydney Morning Herald. 7 April 2013. Retrieved 8 August 2013.
  18. ↑ "Governance Review of the Game Council of NSW" (PDF). Dunn report (PDF). Game Council New South Wales. 14 June 2012. Retrieved 8 August 2013.
  19. ↑ Farrell, Paul (2016-08-04). "Gun owners who made video of Grand Mufti effigy being shot face calls for ban". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 2016-08-04.
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