Andrew Robb

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Andrew Robb (born 20 August 1951), Australian politician, was elected to the House of Representatives as member for the Division of Goldstein, Victoria for the Liberal Party of Australia at the 2004 federal election.

Robb was born in Melbourne and educated at Dookie Agricultural College and La Trobe University, and has qualifications in economics and agricultural science. He was an agricultural economist with the Victorian Department of Agriculture and a Tutor in Economics at La Trobe University before being an economist for the National Farmers' Federation, and later Executive Director of the NFF and the Cattle Council of Australia.

Robb became Deputy Director of the Liberal Party before being appointed Chief of Staff to Andrew Peacock, then Leader of the Opposition, in 1989. In 1990, following Peacock's resignation after his election defeat, Robb was appointed Federal Director of the Liberal Party.

In this capacity Robb worked with the next Leader of the Liberal Party, John Hewson, in the unsuccessful 1993 federal election campaign. He was a Federal Director and campaign manager for John Howard in the 1996 federal election campaign, which defeated the Keating government and brought the Liberals to power after 13 years in Opposition.

Robb resigned in 1997 (he was replaced by Lynton Crosby) and became a business consultant based in Sydney. He was Honorary Finance Director for the NSW Division of the Liberal Party and a member of the NSW State Executive. In that time Robb also sat on the boards of numerous Australian companies and community organisations including the Garvan Medical Research Foundation and the 'Big Brothers Big Sisters' organisation. In 2002 Robb was awarded an Order of Australia for service to politics, agriculture and the community.

By 2004, when he sought Liberal endorsement for the safe Liberal seat of Goldstein in Melbourne, he had not lived in Melbourne for 14 years, a source of some controversy in the local press. Nevertheless he was comfortably elected, and was appointed Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Immigration and Multicultural Affairs on 27 January 2006.