Eric Roozendaal
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Eric Roozendaal (born 16 March 1962), Australian politician, was born in Sydney and educated at Macquarie University. His family is of Dutch-Jewish descent. He became an organiser for the New South Wales branch of the Australian Labor Party in 1987, Assistant General Secretary in 1995 and General Secretary in 1999. This made him the organisation head of the dominant Labor Right faction of the party's largest state branch, a powerful position. He was also a member of the National Executive of the Party.
Roozendaal was campaign director for Premier Bob Carr's successful election campaign in 2003. He was also the party's chief fund-raiser, raising a reported $16.3 million in his four years as General Secretary. He also carried out a crackdown on branch stacking and insisted on the selection of more female candidates in safe Labor seats.
Roozendaal was Labor's New South Wales campaign manager at the 2004 federal election, but he was widely reported to have a poor relationship with the then party leader, Mark Latham, and also with Latham's predecessor and close supporter, Simon Crean. It was reported that Roozendaal was a consistent ally of Kim Beazley and supported his claims to the leadership both in 2003 when Crean resigned and again in 2005 when Latham resigned.
In 2004 Roozendaal was appointed to a vacancy in the New South Wales Legislative Council, succeeding Tony Burke following his election to the House of Representatives. He was immediately appointed chair of the Standing Committee on State Development. In August 2005 he was appointed Minister for Ports and Waterways, and in February 2006 he was promoted to Minister for Roads. Following the 2007 election, Roozendaal was also appointed Minister for Commerce in addition to his Roads portfolio.
In April 2006 Roozendaal was embarrassed for being caught illegally travelling in a Sydney bus lane in his motor vehicle. As the NSW Roads Minister he received criticism from the media coverage over the incident. [1] In May 2007 Roozendaal came under intense scrutiny after dumping an election promise to widen the problematic Spit Bridge. Just 2 months after the election he stated it was 'not viable' even though tenders were called at the end of 2006 with the public hoping for an end to their traffic woes. [2]
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