Santo Santoro

Born in Sicily, Italy in 1956, Santoro emigrated to Australia with his family at the age of 5.^[1] He was educated at Marist College Rosalie in Brisbane before attending the University of Queensland, where he was awarded the degrees of Bachelor of Arts and Bachelor of Economics with honours.^{[citation needed]}

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Santoro was elected to the Legislative Assembly of Queensland as Liberal member for Merthyr in Brisbane from 13 May 1989 until 19 September 1992. He first contested the seat at the 1986 state election against Liberal-turned-National incumbent and Transport Minister Don Lane, and finished third on the primary vote. However, he was only 30 votes behind the Labor challenger, so if 30 Australian Democrats voters had preferenced him ahead of Labor, he would have overtaken Labor for second place and defeated Lane on Labor preferences.

Lane was forced out of politics in January 1989 after admitting to rorting funds. Santoro then contested a by-election in May and was elected on National preferences. The by-election was the first sign of serious trouble for the National government, which was hemorrhaging support in the wake of the Fitzgerald Inquiry. At the state election later that year, Santoro was almost swept up in the massive Labor wave that swept through Brisbane; he only held on to his seat by 164 votes after all preferences were distributed, and was one of only five Liberals elected from Brisbane.

Merthyr was abolished in 1992, and Santoro followed most of his constituents into the re-created seat of Clayfield, which he held from 19 September 1992 until he was defeated on 17 February 2001 by Liddy Clark.

Santoro was the deputy leader of the State Liberal Party from 1992 to 1995. From 26 February 1996 to 26 June 1998, he was the State Minister for Training and Industrial Relations.

On 29 October 2002, Santoro was selected by the Queensland Parliament to replace Liberal Party of Australia Senator John Herron, who had resigned from the Senate to become Australia's Ambassador to Ireland.^[2]

As a senator, Santoro was a strident critic of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, using parliamentary privilege in 2003 to accuse the national broadcaster of "sloppy and shoddy" journalism, and disloyalty to Australian soldiers serving in Iraq, after an internal memo to ABC news staff instructed them to refrain from referring to soldiers as "our troops".^[3]

Santoro was sworn in as Federal Minister for Ageing in John Howard's government on 27 January 2006.

On 14 March 2007, Santoro disclosed that he had breached the government's ministerial code of conduct^[4] by holding shares in CBio, a biotechnology company related to his portfolio. Santoro claimed he had received the shares in January 2006, but had failed to declare or divest them when he became Minister for Ageing. He sold them in January 2007, after realising three months earlier that there might be a conflict of interest. Initially, Prime Minister John Howard and other government ministers defended the breach on the grounds that it was inadvertent.^[5]

On 20 March, Santoro announced he would resign from the Senate, and federal politics altogether.^[6] That meant that he had served as a Commonwealth Minister without ever facing election.^[7] He was replaced in the Senate by Sue Boyce.

Santoro was federal Liberal Party vice-president^[8] until 2014, when he resigned after being forced to choose between that role and being a paid lobbyist. He owns Santo Santoro Consulting and is registered as a lobbyist on both the Queensland and federal registers.^[9]

In 2010, it was reported that Santoro was considering a run for Italian politics.^[10] However, that never eventuated.