Norm Sanders
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Norman Karl Sanders (b. 15 October 1932) was an Australian politician, representing the Australian Democrats in the Tasmanian House of Assembly from 1980 to 1982 and the Australian Senate from 1985 to 1990.
Born in Cleveland, Ohio, Sanders served in the United States Air Force from 1950 - 1952 before undertaking a BSc at the University of Alaska, an MA at the University of California, Los Angeles and a PhD at the University of Tasmania. Sanders worked as an aerospace engineer, pilot and academic in the United States before moving to Tasmania in the 1960s. There he became involved in the nascent environmental movement, becoming Director of The Wilderness Society and authoring two books on environmental issues.
A decision by the Tasmanian government to dam the Franklin River led Sanders to become the leader of the opposition movement to the proposed dam and, representing the Australian Democrats, was elected to the Tasmanian House of Assembly as the Member for Denison at the 1980 Tasmanian election, becoming Australia's first member of parliament to be elected on an environmental platform. In parliament, Sanders was a key player in the campaign to save the Franklin River and successfully moved a motion of no confidence in the Holgate Labor government in March 1982, forcing an early election.
On 23 December 1982, Sanders resigned his position from the Tasmanian House of Assembly, claiming that the government was becoming totalitarian in nature over the Franklin Dam issue, and in particular, the way Franklin Dam protestors were being treated. He turned his attention to federal politics and was elected as a Democrats Senator at the 1984 election on a "No Dams" platform. A member of an Australian parliamentary delegation to the Soviet Union and Poland in 1986, Sanders was re-elected at the 1987 election but, feeling jaded by the amount of travel involved between Tasmania and Canberra, Sanders resigned his Senate position on 1 March 1990 and unsuccessfully contested a Senate position in the Australian Capital Territory at the 1990 federal election.
Following the loss, Sanders lectured in Human Ecology at the Australian National University before unsuccessfully contesting the New South Wales located Division of Eden-Monaro for the Democrats at the 1993 federal election.
Sanders currently owns a sea kayak building company on the south coast of New South Wales.
Sanders is only one of three Americans (along with King O'Malley and Bob Charles) to be elected to the Australian parliament
He has been married and divorced twice.
[edit] References
- Mosler, D. & Catley, B. (1998) America and Americans in Australia, Praeger Publishers, Westport, Connecticut. ISBN 0-275-96252-0.
- Norman, J. (2004) Bob Brown: Gentle Revolutionary, Allen & Unwin, Sydney. ISBN 1-74114-466-3
- Sanders, N. (2003) "Reclaiming History: The Democrats contribution to Environmental Politics", Janine Haines Lecture, Hobart 2003 [1]. Accessed 8 October 2006.
- Biography at Australian Parliament website [2]
