Mal Colston
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Dr Malcolm Arthur Colston (5 April 1938 – 23 August 2003), Australian politician, was a Senator in the Parliament of Australia representing the state of Queensland between 13 December 1975 and 30 June 1999. He was a member of the Australian Labor Party (ALP) until 20 August 1996, but then resigned from the party and sat as an independent until his retirement from the Senate.
Colston was born in Brisbane and became a teacher. He joined the Labor Party at the age of 20 while completing a doctorate in educational psychology.
[edit] Becoming a senator
On 30 June 1975, Queensland ALP Senator Bertie Milliner died suddenly; the party nominated Colston to take his place. The Constitution provides that a Senate casual vacancy is filled by a person appointed by the relevant state parliament. Although it did not become a constitutional requirement until 1977, it had been longstanding convention that the state parliament appoints the person nominated by the departing Senator's party. However, the Premier of Queensland, Joh Bjelke-Petersen, claimed that Colston was a "dangerous socialist" and refused to appoint him. Officially though, Bjelke-Petersen expressed doubts over Colston's integrity and instead appointed Albert Field, who was a member of the Labor Party but staunchly opposed the policies of the Gough Whitlam Labor government.
This was one of the events that led to the dismissal of the Whitlam Government. Colston was elected to the Senate in the election that followed the dismissal.
[edit] After Labor
After the 1996 election, Colston resigned from the Labor Party when it refused to nominate him to become Deputy President of the Senate. In a bid to win him over, the Howard Coalition government offered to support him and he was elected to the role. While he did not support much of the Coalition's legislative agenda, including opposing much of its industrial relations package, he did vote for the sale of a third of Telstra.
[edit] Travel allowances scandal
Colston faced allegations in 1997 that he had misused parliamentary travel allowances and was charged by the Commonwealth Director of Public Prosecutions with 28 charges of defrauding the Commonwealth. He then revealed that he was suffering from cancer and retired from the Senate at the end of his term. Prosecution was not pursued after medical opinion was provided that Colston was unlikely to live long enough for a trial to be completed. In the event, he survived for a further six years.
