Gary Hardgrave

Gary Douglas Hardgrave (born 5 January 1960), Australian politician, was the Liberal member of the Australian House of Representatives from March 1996 until 2007, representing the Division of Moreton, Queensland. He was born in Sydney, New South Wales, and was educated at Griffith University, Queensland. In the 1980s he began his career as a broadcaster, co-hosting the Australian children's television show Wombat. He continued radio and television broadcasting, and worked as a media adviser to Liberal politicians, before entering politics.

Hardgrave initially ran for election to the Queensland state seat of Sunnybank in the 1992 election, but the seat was won by Labor's Stephen Robertson. He contested Moreton successfully at the 1996 federal election against Labor incumbent Garrie Gibson, going on to retain the seat in 1998, 2001 and 2004.

Hardgrave served as Minister for Citizenship and Multicultural Affairs from 2001 to 2004, Minister for Vocational and Technical Education since October 2004 to early 2007 and Minister Assisting the Prime Minister from 7 October 2003 to 30 January 2007.^[1] On 23 January 2007, Hardgrave was axed from the ministry and returned to the backbench.^[2]

Hardgrave lost his seat to Graham Perrett in the 2007 election.

In January 2011, Gary returned to radio broadcasting with his own talk-back show on 1116 4BC in Brisbane, Qld.

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