Graeme Campbell (politician)

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Graeme Campbell (born 13 August 1939) is an Australian politician. He was the federal Labor member for the vast seat of Kalgoorlie from 1980 to 1995, and as an independent until 1998.

He was born in Oxfordshire, England, came to Australia as a child and was educated at Urrbrae Agricultural High School in South Australia. He worked in a range of occupations before entering federal parliament in October 1980.

Considered a maverick, he was an ardent supporter of the mining industry, and crossed the floor on gold tax in 1988, and was also a vocal critic of the Mabo decision and sanctions on the apartheid regime in South Africa, and a proponent of uranium mining. In October 1993, and again in May 1995, he delivered a speech at the national seminar of the Australian League of Rights, a far-right group for which he was believed to hold sympathies, and in by-elections in Mackellar and Warringah (safe Liberal seats on the northern beaches of Sydney) in 1994, he urged electors to vote for Australians Against Further Immigration (AAFI).

After numerous run-ins with the Labor leadership and considerable media attention to his exploits, he was finally disendorsed and removed from the Party on 30 November 1995 after addressing an AAFI meeting where he criticised Labor's immigration policies. He continued to sit in parliament as an Independent, easily winning the 1996 election, but lost to Liberal candidate Barry Haase in 1998, who as of 2007 is still the member for Kalgoorlie.

Campbell also founded the Australia First Party in 1996 of which he was chairman until June 2001, when he left the party to stand (unsuccessfully) as a One Nation senate candidate in Western Australia. In 2004, he attempted unsuccessfully to regain the seat of Kalgoorlie as an independent. In 2007, he stood for the Australian Senate in Western Australia in the federal election but only achieved 0.04% of the vote. [1]