Politics
In 1967 Fitzgerald was elected to the ACT Advisory Council as a "True Whig", promising to take no action as a mock platform. He was re-elected in 1970, with 21% of the vote, ahead of the Liberal Party candidates and second only to the Australian Labour Party (ALP) team. For many years, Fitzgerald was a member and chairman of the ACT Historic Sites and Building Committee (later renamed the Heritage Council), a body that had been established at his initiative. The Committee sought to protect historic homesteads and buildings, during a time when Canberra was rapidly being extended into surrounding rural areas.
Fitzgerald was initiated into politics when he stood for the Australia Party (founded by Gordon Barton) as its candidate in the May 1970 by-election, running for the House of Representatives seat of Canberra. He won the highest vote of any Australia Party candidate in any election, but was eliminated from the vote count in a final distribution of preference votes. In 1972, Fitzgerald stood again as an Australia Party candidate for the same seat in the Federal election of that year.
Fitzgerald was elected the President of the National Press Club for two terms, 1969–70 and 1970–71, and remained on the committee for many years. As a monarchist, he was a founding member and chairman of the ACT & Region branch of the ACM and played an active role in the Australian republican debate. In 1998, he was the ACM's primary candidate in the election of delegates to the Constitutional Convention, but lost on a final distribution of preferences to the ARM candidate, Frank Cassidy.
Read more about this topic: Alan Fitzgerald (satirist)
Famous quotes containing the word politics:
“Our family talked a lot at table, and only two subjects were taboo: politics and personal troubles. The first was sternly avoided because Father ran a nonpartisan daily in a small town, with some success, and did not wish to express his own opinions in public, even when in private.”
—M.F.K. Fisher (1908–1992)
“I believe you to be a brave and a skillful soldier, which, of course, I like. I also believe you do not mix politics with your profession, in which you are right.”
—Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865)
“I have come to the conclusion that the closer people are to what may be called the front lines of government ... the easier it is to see the immediate underbrush, the individual tree trunks of the moment, and to forget the nobility the usefulness and the wide extent of the forest itself.... They forget that politics after all is only an instrument through which to achieve Government.”
—Franklin D. Roosevelt (1882–1945)