John Reginald Williams (born 16 January 1955) is an Australian politician. He has been a National Party member of the Australian Senate since July 2008, representing the state of New South Wales.
Williams was first elected to the Senate at the 2007 federal election. This followed his victory over incumbent Senator Sandy Macdonald in preselection for the National Party's one winnable spot on the Coalition Senate ticket in New South Wales.
Williams was born in Jamestown, South Australia. Prior to entering politics, he was a truck driver, a farmer, a sheep shearer and a small business owner.
Williams vote was the third out of five votes required to give maverick Barnaby Joyce the Senate leadership in September 2008.
Famous quotes containing the words john, williams, south, wales and/or federal:
“When John Henry was a little fellow,
You could hold him in the palm of your hand,
He said to his pa, “When I grow up
I’m gonna be a steel-driving man.
Gonna be a steel-driving man.””
—Unknown. John Henry (l. 1–5)
“When so many are lonely as seem to be lonely, it would be inexcusably selfish to be lonely alone.”
—Tennessee Williams (1914–1983)
“Biography is a very definite region bounded on the north by history, on the south by fiction, on the east by obituary, and on the west by tedium.”
—Philip Guedalla (1889–1944)
“I just come and talk to the plants, really—very important to talk to them, they respond I find.”
—Charles, Prince Of Wales (b. 1948)
“Prestige is the shadow of money and power. Where these are, there it is. Like the national market for soap or automobiles and the enlarged arena of federal power, the national cash-in area for prestige has grown, slowly being consolidated into a truly national system.”
—C. Wright Mills (1916–1962)