Political Career
Drum first ran for office amidst the Labor Party landslide, in which many seats across the state fell to the minority government, and numerous shadow ministers lost their seats. Drum was elected despite the losses sustained by the conservative parties, with the Liberal Party losing a net total of 26 seats whilst the Nationals suffered a net loss of only one seat. The conservatives had ended their coalition in 2000 and campaigned separately.
The demise of the conservative coalition meant that the Nationals had numerous portfolios to fill in order to replace all those that had been occupied by the larger Liberal Party. Despite being a newly elected member with no previous political experience, Drum found himself Deputy Leader of the National Party in the Legislative Council, party Whip, and Shadow Minister for Youth Affairs, Education Services, Sport, Recreation, Racing, Consumer Affairs and the Commonwealth Games. Drum has also been a member of the Environment and Natural Resources Committee since 2003.
In 2003, Drum voted against the passage of a bill legalising stem-cell research on excess IVF embryos.
For the 2006 election the Upper House of the Victorian parliament underwent major structural changes. Drum's previous seat of North-West Region was replaced by the much larger Northern Victoria Region and proportional rather than preferential voting. Drum was easily elected with a quota in his own right but is the only National Party member for the region.
Drum is currently the deputy leader of The Nationals in the Legislative Council.
Read more about this topic: Damian Drum
Famous quotes containing the words political and/or career:
“When, in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the laws of nature and of nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.”
—Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826)
“He was at a starting point which makes many a man’s career a fine subject for betting, if there were any gentlemen given to that amusement who could appreciate the complicated probabilities of an arduous purpose, with all the possible thwartings and furtherings of circumstance, all the niceties of inward balance, by which a man swings and makes his point or else is carried headlong.”
—George Eliot [Mary Ann (or Marian)