Michael Caltabiano

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Michael Caltabiano

Michael Caltabiano (born 8 April 1964) is an Australian politician. He was a Liberal Party member of the Brisbane City Council from 1996 to 2005, and a Liberal member of the Queensland Legislative Assembly from 2005 to 2006.

Caltabiano studied engineering at James Cook University and a Master of Philosophy at Nottingham University (UK) and completed a Graduate Diploma of Business at Queensland University of Technology. He worked as a civil engineer and company director.

In 1995 he had his first daughter Elysia and then in 1997 he had his second of two daughters Rihan.

He was appointed as a replacement Liberal Party Councillor for Chandler Ward of the Brisbane City Council in 1996. Caltabiano replaced Liberal Graeme MacDougall, who was elected to the Commonwealth seat of Griffith and had to resign his Council seat. Caltabiano subsequently won the 1997, 2000 and 2004 elections.

Caltabiano served as Leader of the Opposition in Brisbane City Council from 2000 until 2002, when he was ousted during a factional deal involving a dispute over representation on the State Liberal Council. He was replaced by Margaret De Wit in 2002, who was in turn replaced by Graham Quirk in 2003. He was responsible for writing many of the policies for candidate Campbell Newman and was directly responsible for writing the 2004-05 Budget as presented to Council (normally this is the Lord Mayor's duty, however Campbell Newman prefers to leave this responsibility to other Liberal councillors.)^{[citation needed]}.

He was also actively involved in party politics, serving as Queensland state president of the Liberal Party from 2003 to 2006.

In mid-2005, Labor Deputy Premier Terry Mackenroth resigned from politics, sparking a by-election in his seat of Chatsworth, which included Caltabiano's council ward. Caltabiano was preselected as the Liberal candidate, and faced Labor candidate Chris Forrester, who he had defeated in the previous council election. The Labor government was struggling in the polls at the time, and Caltabiano won the seat with 52.35% of the vote.

Caltabiano was appointed to the shadow ministry upon his election, taking on the role of Shadow Minister for Transport. He was widely viewed as a rising star in the party, and had been tipped as a future Liberal leader. In August 2006, following the accession of Bruce Flegg to the Liberal leadership, Caltabiano was promoted to Shadow Treasurer.

Premier Peter Beattie called an election for 9 September 2006 and Labor preselected Chris Bombolas, a high-profile sports presenter, as its candidate. The Liberals struggled with a series of early gaffes. After a close race, Bombolas succeeded in taking the seat by several hundred votes. In the aftermath of his wife being unable to secure pre-selection for the Council ward of Wishart, it is unlikely that Caltabiano will be actively involved in politics in the near future.

Caltabiano is currently involved with a political consultancy firm, "Entree Vous".