Jon Jenkins (born 17 June 1958) was an Australian politician and representative of the Outdoor Recreation Party. He was a member of the New South Wales Legislative Council from 2003, when he was appointed to a casual vacancy caused by the resignation of Malcolm Jones, and he resigned his seat in February, 2007, only weeks before the upcoming NSW State election in March.[1]
Jenkins initially left school at a young age, but later returned and proceeded on to commence a combined Law/Science degree at Macquarie University. He later diverged from this outcome, interested in pursuing a career in the natural sciences and medicine. Through his subsequent studies, he was awarded the University Prize for his postgraduate work in virology, which furthered with studies on topics such as viral coat proteins, protein structure prediction and other aspects such as AI in medicine, virtual surgery and 3D image re-construction.
Prior to being elected to Parliament Jenkins worked in private industry and at various universities and also ran his own medical education consulting business. Until recently Jenkins was at Bond University in Queensland as a lecturer where he worked on the start of the first private medical school in Australia and also in the IT school and he is still an adjunct Professor.[2]
Jenkins is an avowed anti-Green politician, who considered the conservation movement to be usurped by extreme left political ideologues that are damaging the environment through 'bad science' and misusing peoples environmental concerns to implement their non-conservation related social agendas.[3][4]
His present state of health has seen him resign from the University and withdraw from public political life but he is still active, particularly in areas related to climate change.