Ross Cameron
Encyclopedia
Ross Alexander Cameron (born 14 May 1965), Australian politician, was a Liberal
member of the Australian House of Representatives
from March 1996 to October 2004, representing the Division of Parramatta
, New South Wales. The son of Jim Cameron, a member of the New South Wales Legislative Assembly
, he was born in Sydney, New South Wales, grew up in Turramurra in Sydney and was educated at Knox Grammar School
and Sydney University. He was a lawyer before entering politics. He was policy adviser and research officer to the New South Wales
Minister for Transport, Bruce Baird
, and an intern to United States Republican Senator Mark Hatfield
.
from the sitting Labor
member Paul Elliot
. A noted orator, he delivered his maiden speech to the House of Representatives without notes. Cameron held the traditionally Labor seat of Parramatta for three terms. At the 2004 Federal election, he lost his seat to Labor
candidate Julie Owens
.
While a member of parliament, Cameron was Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Family and Community Services from 2001–2003 and Parliamentary Secretary to the Treasurer (Peter Costello
) 2003–2004.
Cameron ran regular prayer meetings for politicians in his office in Parliament House
. Mark Latham former leader of the Federal Parliamentary Australian Labor Party and Leader of the Opposition from December 2003 to January 2005, wrote of Ross Cameron in 1997: "Ross Cameron, the..... Liberal member for Parramatta, has talked me into participating in his youth leadership forum in Canberra. I rather suspect it's a front for mobilising Christian soldiers, plus some quality box for Ross'.
Cameron ran an eight year campaign while in office against the Parliament House contemporary art collection.
Mark Bahnisch wrote "He was probably also unwise not to enquire of the “exotic solicitor”‘s flatmate what her occupation was – she turned out to be a member of the Canberra Press Gallery – hence his pre-emptive confession" The Sydney Morning Herald later noted that Cameron "realised he had been so indiscreet – his lover shared a house with a News Limited journalist – that it would come out anyway".
Richard Wilson in The culture of contempt notes that there had been a "deliberate decision by a number of journalists not to report the often open philandering of Liberal MP for Parramatta Ross Cameron..... (Penberthy, D., 2004, The Daily Telegraph, p. 26). " noting that these media outlets ignored the public's right to know.
Ex-Liberal Andrew Elder concluded in 2010 that "the Liberal Party.... insisted that Cameron be married before he could be endorsed and go to Parliament. In marrying – a public display of his private life – Cameron's challenge was to find an avowedly Christian woman who did not mind his sexual infidelity but did not practice it herself: a tough ask, impossible for our Ross. When the inevitable happened in 2004, Ross decided to go public. Accept me as I am, he insisted: I'm going to talk family values but I won't practice it. Mrs Cameron realised that there was more dignity in abandoning this farce than standing by to prop it up. The people of Parramatta, not averse to voting Liberal, decided not to be represented by a man who could not act in his own interests let alone theirs. Cameron's political career is over and so it should be."
Cameron was a founder and original board member of MyATM, along with Don Fleming, Kym Weir, Tim Scala and Grant Chapman. The company was initially banned by the Australian Securities and Investment Commission (ASIC) from public release on the Australian stock exchange after queries concerning the viability and public interest in the company as well as a 20% projected profit guarantee for investors. On eventually floating in January 2011, the MyATM share price fell from its open of .21c to .009c in the first seven months of trading, losing investors millions of dollars. Cameron controversially resigned four months after the public float.
, Robertson
or Kingsford Smith
or the Senate
, but it would depend on how his business interests were going.
Liberal Party of Australia
The Liberal Party of Australia is an Australian political party.Founded a year after the 1943 federal election to replace the United Australia Party, the centre-right Liberal Party typically competes with the centre-left Australian Labor Party for political office...
member of the Australian House of Representatives
Australian House of Representatives
The House of Representatives is one of the two houses of the Parliament of Australia; it is the lower house; the upper house is the Senate. Members of Parliament serve for terms of approximately three years....
from March 1996 to October 2004, representing the Division of Parramatta
Division of Parramatta
The Division of Parramatta is an Australian Electoral Division in New South Wales. The division was created in 1900 and was one of the original 75 divisions contested at the first federal election. It is named for the locality of Parramatta. The name Parramatta has been sourced to an Aboriginal...
, New South Wales. The son of Jim Cameron, a member of the New South Wales Legislative Assembly
New South Wales Legislative Assembly
The Legislative Assembly, or lower house, is one of the two chambers of the Parliament of New South Wales, an Australian state. The other chamber is the Legislative Council. Both the Assembly and Council sit at Parliament House in the state capital, Sydney...
, he was born in Sydney, New South Wales, grew up in Turramurra in Sydney and was educated at Knox Grammar School
Knox Grammar School
Knox Grammar School is an independent, Uniting Church, day and boarding school for boys, located in Wahroonga, an upper North Shore suburb of Sydney, New South Wales, Australia....
and Sydney University. He was a lawyer before entering politics. He was policy adviser and research officer to the New South Wales
New South Wales
New South Wales is a state of :Australia, located in the east of the country. It is bordered by Queensland, Victoria and South Australia to the north, south and west respectively. To the east, the state is bordered by the Tasman Sea, which forms part of the Pacific Ocean. New South Wales...
Minister for Transport, Bruce Baird
Bruce Baird
Bruce George Baird, AM , is a former Australian politician.-Early life:Baird was born in Sydney, and was educated at the University of Sydney and the University of Melbourne, holding a master's degree in business administration from the latter...
, and an intern to United States Republican Senator Mark Hatfield
Mark Hatfield
Mark Odom Hatfield was an American politician and educator from the state of Oregon. A Republican, he served for 30 years as a United States Senator from Oregon, and also as chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee...
.
Member of Parliament
Cameron was elected to parliament in the 1996 Federal election, winning the Division of ParramattaDivision of Parramatta
The Division of Parramatta is an Australian Electoral Division in New South Wales. The division was created in 1900 and was one of the original 75 divisions contested at the first federal election. It is named for the locality of Parramatta. The name Parramatta has been sourced to an Aboriginal...
from the sitting Labor
Australian Labor Party
The Australian Labor Party is an Australian political party. It has been the governing party of the Commonwealth of Australia since the 2007 federal election. Julia Gillard is the party's federal parliamentary leader and Prime Minister of Australia...
member Paul Elliot
Paul Elliott (Australian politician)
Robert Paul Elliott is an Australian politician. He was a Labor member of the Australian House of Representatives from 1990 to 1996, representing the division of Parramatta....
. A noted orator, he delivered his maiden speech to the House of Representatives without notes. Cameron held the traditionally Labor seat of Parramatta for three terms. At the 2004 Federal election, he lost his seat to Labor
Australian Labor Party
The Australian Labor Party is an Australian political party. It has been the governing party of the Commonwealth of Australia since the 2007 federal election. Julia Gillard is the party's federal parliamentary leader and Prime Minister of Australia...
candidate Julie Owens
Julie Owens
Julie Ann Owens , Australian politician, has been an Australian Labor Party member of the Australian House of Representatives since October 2004, representing the division of Parramatta, New South Wales...
.
While a member of parliament, Cameron was Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Family and Community Services from 2001–2003 and Parliamentary Secretary to the Treasurer (Peter Costello
Peter Costello
Peter Howard Costello AC is an Australian politician and lawyer who served as the Treasurer in the Australian government from 1996 to 2007. He is the longest-serving Treasurer in Australian history. Costello was a Member of the Australian House of Representatives from 1990 to 2009, representing...
) 2003–2004.
Cameron ran regular prayer meetings for politicians in his office in Parliament House
Parliament House
Parliament House is the name of the seat of Parliament in a number of jurisdictions:-Australia:Commonwealth Parliament* Parliament House, Canberra, Parliament of Australia* Old Parliament House, CanberraState and Territory Parliaments...
. Mark Latham former leader of the Federal Parliamentary Australian Labor Party and Leader of the Opposition from December 2003 to January 2005, wrote of Ross Cameron in 1997: "Ross Cameron, the..... Liberal member for Parramatta, has talked me into participating in his youth leadership forum in Canberra. I rather suspect it's a front for mobilising Christian soldiers, plus some quality box for Ross'.
Cameron ran an eight year campaign while in office against the Parliament House contemporary art collection.
Christianity and The Fellowship
Cameron, along with several other Australian Politicians, has been associated with the American evangelical Christian organisation, The Fellowship/The Family in the Radio broadcast 'Elite Fundamentism – The Fellowship's gospel of Capitalist Power'. US Senator Mark Hatfield, with whom Cameron served an internship, is a significant leader in the secretive organisation. Together with his brother Jock, Ross Cameron ran regular meetings and prayer breakfasts in Canberra while in office which were modelled on the Fellowship's cellular functioning in the USA. (see God Under Howard: The Rise of the Religious Right in Australia) In aspects, The Fellowship has been criticised "as an "elite fundamentalism" that fetishises political power and wealth, teaches that laissez-faire economic policy is "God's will" and compares Jesus to “Hitler,Lenin, Ho Chi Minh, Bin Laden” as examples of leaders who change the world through the strength of the covenants they had forged with their “brothers”. " (see Sharlet, Jeff (2008). The Family: Power, Politics and Fundamentalism's Shadow Elite. University of Queensland Press. ) as Cameron himself has done.Controversy
In August 2004, Cameron revealed in an interview in Good Weekend that he had an extramarital affair while his wife was pregnant with twins. Cameron "was a frequent overnight visitor to the house his mistress shared with a reporter". In Truth Overboard,Time Magazine journalist Tom Dusevic wrote that once Cameron's story was in the public domain "...reporters in Canberra immediately ran with further details of Cameron's private life, unleashing stories they'd been sitting on for years" which included accounts of numerous other affairs which he had failed to disclose. "Ross Cameron makes a mockery of Christianity and Christians..."Mark Bahnisch wrote "He was probably also unwise not to enquire of the “exotic solicitor”‘s flatmate what her occupation was – she turned out to be a member of the Canberra Press Gallery – hence his pre-emptive confession" The Sydney Morning Herald later noted that Cameron "realised he had been so indiscreet – his lover shared a house with a News Limited journalist – that it would come out anyway".
Richard Wilson in The culture of contempt notes that there had been a "deliberate decision by a number of journalists not to report the often open philandering of Liberal MP for Parramatta Ross Cameron..... (Penberthy, D., 2004, The Daily Telegraph, p. 26). " noting that these media outlets ignored the public's right to know.
Ex-Liberal Andrew Elder concluded in 2010 that "the Liberal Party.... insisted that Cameron be married before he could be endorsed and go to Parliament. In marrying – a public display of his private life – Cameron's challenge was to find an avowedly Christian woman who did not mind his sexual infidelity but did not practice it herself: a tough ask, impossible for our Ross. When the inevitable happened in 2004, Ross decided to go public. Accept me as I am, he insisted: I'm going to talk family values but I won't practice it. Mrs Cameron realised that there was more dignity in abandoning this farce than standing by to prop it up. The people of Parramatta, not averse to voting Liberal, decided not to be represented by a man who could not act in his own interests let alone theirs. Cameron's political career is over and so it should be."
After Parliament
Following the revelations of infidelity, Cameron lost his seat in the 2004 federal election. After his departure from parliament, he joined Macquarie Bank's Investment Banking Group, working primarily on partnerships between the public and private sectors. He left Macquarie in 2008.Cameron was a founder and original board member of MyATM, along with Don Fleming, Kym Weir, Tim Scala and Grant Chapman. The company was initially banned by the Australian Securities and Investment Commission (ASIC) from public release on the Australian stock exchange after queries concerning the viability and public interest in the company as well as a 20% projected profit guarantee for investors. On eventually floating in January 2011, the MyATM share price fell from its open of .21c to .009c in the first seven months of trading, losing investors millions of dollars. Cameron controversially resigned four months after the public float.
Potential return to politics
In September, 2011 Cameron said he may run for a seat at the next federal election and had discussed the matter with Opposition Leader Tony Abbott. While he ruled out running for his old seat of Parramatta, Liberal sources said he was considering putting his hand up for seats such as DobellDivision of Dobell
The Division of Dobell is an Australian electoral Division in New South Wales. The division was created in 1984 and is named for Sir William Dobell, the painter. It is located in the Central Coast region of New South Wales and includes the towns of The Entrance, Tuggerah and Wyong...
, Robertson
Division of Robertson
The Division of Robertson is an Australian Electoral Division in the state of New South Wales. The Division is located on the Central Coast, immediately north of the Hawkesbury River. It encompasses the towns of Woy Woy, Gosford and Terrigal....
or Kingsford Smith
Division of Kingsford Smith
The Division of Kingsford Smith is an Australian Electoral Division in the state of New South Wales. It is located in the south-eastern suburbs of Sydney, on the north shore of Botany Bay, and the coast of the Tasman Sea...
or the Senate
Australian Senate
The Senate is the upper house of the bicameral Parliament of Australia, the lower house being the House of Representatives. Senators are popularly elected under a system of proportional representation. Senators are elected for a term that is usually six years; after a double dissolution, however,...
, but it would depend on how his business interests were going.