Steven Gordon "Steve" Rodgers (born 23 June 1951) is a former Australia

Australia

Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...

n politician. He was a 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 of the Queensland Legislative Assembly

Queensland Legislative Assembly

The Queensland Legislative Assembly is the unicameral chamber of the Parliament of Queensland. Elections are held approximately once every three years. Voting is by the Optional Preferential Voting form of the Alternative Vote system...

 from 2001 to 2004, representing the seat of Burdekin

Electoral district of Burdekin

Burdekin is an electoral district in the Queensland Legislative Assembly in the state of Queensland, Australia. Centred on the Ayr–Home Hill region, the electorate also includes some of Townsville's southern suburbs as well as the coal-mining town of Collinsville...

.

Rodgers was born in Lismore

Lismore, New South Wales

Lismore is a subtropical town in northeastern New South Wales, Australia. Lismore is the main population centre in the City of Lismore local government area. Lismore is a regional centre in the Northern Rivers region of the State.-History:...

, 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...

, and qualified as a boilermaker

Boilermaker

A boilermaker is a trained craftsman who produces steel fabrications from plates and sections. The name originated from craftsmen who would fabricate boilers, but they may work on projects as diverse as bridges to blast furnaces to the construction of mining equipment.-Boilermaking:Many...

. He underwent national service

National service

National service is a common name for mandatory government service programmes . The term became common British usage during and for some years following the Second World War. Many young people spent one or more years in such programmes...

 from April 1972 to January 1973. In 1997 he was certified as a carpet cleaning technician by the Australian Carpet Cleaning Institute. Rodgers held the posts of President, Secretary and Treasurer of the Burdekin ALP branch before his election to the seat in a surprise win in 2001, defeating former One Nation member Jeff Knuth

Jeff Knuth

Jeffrey Allan "Jeff" Knuth is a former Australian politician. Born in Ayr, Queensland, he is married to Janine and was a painter and decorator before entering politics. In 1998, he was elected to the Queensland Legislative Assembly as a member of Pauline Hanson's One Nation, representing the seat...

, running for the City Country Alliance

City Country Alliance

The City Country Alliance was a short lived Australian political party that briefly held six Queensland state seats.It was founded in late 1999 after the One Nation Party contingent in the Queensland Legislative Assembly split...

. He was defeated by National Party

National Party of Australia

The National Party of Australia is an Australian political party.Traditionally representing graziers, farmers and rural voters generally, it began as the The Country Party, but adopted the name The National Country Party in 1975, changed to The National Party of Australia in 1982. The party is...

 candidate Rosemary Menkens

Rosemary Menkens

Rosemary Norma Menkens is an Australian politician. She represents the electoral district of Burdekin in the Queensland Legislative Assembly. Originally elected in 2004 for the National Party, she joined the Liberal National Party in 2008. She is currently performing the role of Shadow...

in 2004; an attempt to regain Burdekin in 2006 was unsuccessful.