Political Career
In 2004 Roozendaal was appointed to a vacancy in the Legislative Council, succeeding Tony Burke following Burke's election to the Australian House of Representatives. Roozendaal was immediately appointed chair of the Standing Committee on State Development, and then in August 2005 he was appointed Minister for Ports and Waterways, and in February 2006 he was promoted to Minister for Roads. Following the 2007 election, Roozendaal was also appointed Minister for Commerce in addition to his Roads portfolio.
Despite criticisms, Roozendaal was promoted to Treasurer by incoming Premier Nathan Rees, with immediate responsibilities for producing a 2008 mini-budget and maintaining the State's credit rating.
Roozendaal has described himself as a "rev head", due to his love of V8 Supercars. He was an advocate for transforming Sydney Olympic Park into a V8 Supercar circuit.
Read more about this topic: Eric Roozendaal
Famous quotes containing the words political and/or career:
“The war was won on both sides: by the Vietnamese on the ground, by the Americans in the electronic mental space. And if the one side won an ideological and political victory, the other made Apocalypse Now and that has gone right around the world.”
—Jean Baudrillard (b. 1929)
“Whether lawyer, politician or executive, the American who knows what’s good for his career seeks an institutional rather than an individual identity. He becomes the man from NBC or IBM. The institutional imprint furnishes him with pension, meaning, proofs of existence. A man without a company name is a man without a country.”
—Lewis H. Lapham (b. 1935)