About Rob

Rob is 41 years old, married to Sara-Jane and has four children in Sophie (7), Olivia (5), Angus (3) and Benjamin (1).

 

Rob has been in public life since 1996 when he became the youngest member of the NSW Parliament at age 25, and learnt about the best and worst that politics has to offer over the following 12 and half years in NSW politics. In that time he was a NSW Shadow Minister for Sport, Racing, Gaming, Ports, and Fisheries, and has had an ongoing interest in each of these areas as a consequence. He was also a member of the highest statutory committee, the NSW Public Accounts Committee and also continues to have an interest in accountability standards in the public sector and how good oversight bodies, like the Auditor-General, can operate more effectively in the public sector. Other committee work includes time on the Public Bodies Review Committee, and the Regulation Review Committee.

 

Since joining Federal Parliament in September 2008, Rob has invested heavily in committee work – the often overlooked ‘engine room’ for effective Government – including his current chairmanship of the Joint Standing Committee on the National Broadband Network and the Public Accounts and Audit Committee. Rob is also serving on the Selection Committee, the Multi-Party Climate Change Committee, the Infrastructure and Communications Committee and the Joint Select Committee on the Parliamentary Budget Office as well as being a member of the Panel working on the Constitutional Recognition of Indigenous Peoples.

 

Rob also participated in the House of Representatives Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development and Local Government inquiry into the global financial crisis impacts on regional and rural Australia, and remains concerned about the amount of investment money which was lost in 2009 by statutory and semi-statutory bodies, councils, and non-government education and welfare providers, and potentially how little is being talked about the truth of just how much was lost and its future impacts on service delivery as a consequence.

 

Along with a Labor MP (Graham Perrett MP) and a Greens MP (Senator Sarah Hanson-Young) Rob has helped re-establish the Parliamentarians Amnesty International Group, and is currently a co-convenor. Together they have developed a good strategy to focus on world-wide MP’s and/or candidates for office who are being held against their will and to advocate and lobby for those specifically within the political process. Sadly, throughout the world today, there are many, and this A.I. group is therefore a busy one.

 

A White Ribbon Ambassador, Rob is Australia’s Parliamentary representative on the all-male (10 blokes from different Parliaments within the region, Chaired by Dr Puka Timu, Deputy Prime Minister - PNG)  Asia-Pacific Parliamentary Group of the United Nations Development Program that is working to minimise violence against women and girls within the region - He has a belief that it is men who have to “man up” on matters in relation to domestic violence and more often than not it is men who have to address underlying cultural sensitivities associated with this throughout Australia and its region - where DV rates are some of the highest throughout the world.

 

Rob has a Bachelor of Arts (Hons) and Law and views non-metropolitan disengagement in education as one of the key economic failures for Australia, and continues to work on turning this around.

 

Rob enjoys most sports – both playing and watching – with the highlights of his sporting career being an 8-4 victory by the Mid-North Coast Combined XV over the Australian Womens Rugby Team in what he claimed to be his one test appearance. 

 

Rob's “life dance card” is pretty full at the moment where its either work or family or sleep, but where possible, he loves his downtime with close family and friends, beach and surf, or bush and bikes. Rob's world famous vegetable pie is also ready to be cooked at a moments notice, much to the growing concern of his kids!