Ian Campbell (Australian politician)

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Ian Gordon Campbell (born 22 May 1959), Australian politician, has been a Liberal member of the Australian Senate since May 1990, representing Western Australia. He was born in Perth, Western Australia, and was a commercial and industrial property consultant and company director before entering politics. Campbell was selected by the parliament of Western Australia on 16 May 1990 to replace the retiring Senator Fred Chaney, and has been elected in his own right in 1993, 1998, and 2004.

Campbell was a member of the Opposition Shadow Ministry 1994-96. He was Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for the Environment, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Sport, Territories and Local Government and Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the Senate in 1996, Parliamentary Secretary to the Treasurer 1996--98 and 2001-03, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Communications, Information Technology and the Arts 1998-2001 and Minister for Local Government, Territories and Roads 2003-2004. In July 2004 he was promoted to Minister for the Environment and Heritage. He remained in the portfolio until January 2007, when he was made Human Services Minister during the Cabinet reshuffle. Previously a non-cabinet position, this was changed for Ian Campbell when he was made Human Services Minister.

However, on March 3, 2007 Campbell resigned from cabinet following revelations he had been involved in a meeting with former Western Australian Premier Brian Burke. The resignation of a minister for conduct in office was unprecedented during the term of Australian Prime Minister John Howard. John Howard also defended Ian Campbell from charges of any moral wrong doing, contradicting deputy leader Peter Costello's statement that anyone who dealt with Brian Burke was morally compromised. This means that there is no substantive public policy reason for accepting the resignation. The resignation came in the midst of Liberal Party attacks on Opposition leader Kevin Rudd for also having met with Mr Burke, and was widely seen as part of a strategy to undermine Mr Rudd's popular standing and to pressure him to resign or appear hypocritical.^[1]^[2]

The disgraced former cabinet member and environment minister will be remembered for contradicting the government's line that denied the link between human activity and global warming. He wil also be remembered for his decision to block windfarms in Victoria to prevent a "1 in 1000 year" chance of killing an endangered Orange-bellied Parrot.^[3]