Craig Ingram (born 25 March 1965) is a former Australian politician, and was the

Independent Independent or Independents may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Artist groups * Independents (artist group), a group of modernist painters based in the New Hope, Pennsylvania, area of the United States during the early 1930s * Independ ...

Member of Parliament A member of parliament (MP) is the representative in parliament of the people who live in their electoral district. In many countries with bicameral parliaments, this term refers only to members of the lower house since upper house members of ...

for Gippsland East in the

Victorian Legislative Assembly The Victorian Legislative Assembly is the lower house of the bicameral Parliament of Victoria in Australia; the upper house being the Victorian Legislative Council. Both houses sit at Parliament House in Spring Street, Melbourne. The presiding ...

from 1999 to 2010. In 2012 he was appointed as executive officer for the Amateur Fisherman's Association of the NT (AFANT).

Personal life

Ingram was educated at Mallacoota P-12 College from 1970 to 1981, and undertook a Certificate of Technical Fisheries at the Australian Maritime College in 1987. Prior to being elected to parliament, Ingram worked as a

farmer A farmer is a person engaged in agriculture, raising living organisms for food or raw materials. The term usually applies to people who do some combination of raising field crops, orchards, vineyards, poultry, or other livestock. A farmer mig ...

from 1987 to 1989, and as an

abalone Abalone ( or ; via Spanish , from Rumsen ''aulón'') is a common name for any of a group of small to very large marine gastropod molluscs in the family (biology), family Haliotidae. Other common name In biology, a common name of a taxon o ...

diver from 1989 to 1999. Ingram is married and has 6 children from 2 separate marriages.

Political career

At the 1999 election, he unexpectedly won the seat after receiving preferences from the independent, One Nation and

Labor Labour or labor may refer to: * Childbirth, the delivery of a baby * Labour (human activity), or work ** Manual labour, physical work ** Wage labour, a socioeconomic relationship between a worker and an employer ** Organized labour and the labour ...

candidates. Ingram then held the balance of power with two other independents,

Russell Savage Russell Irwin Savage (born 27 January 1948) is an Australian politician, who was the independent member for the Victorian Legislative Assembly seat of Mildura from 1996 until 2006. Prior to entering politics, he was a long-serving police offic ...

and

Susan Davies Susan Margaret Davies (born 1954) is a former Australian politician. She was born in Mirboo North, Victoria, to parents Richard Llewellyn (dec) and Jean Margaret Davies (dec). She attended Leongatha High School (1966–70) and Watsonia H ...

. The three independents would not support a minority government led by the incumbent Liberal Premier

Jeff Kennett Jeffrey Gibb Kennett (born 2 March 1948) is a former Australian politician who was the 43rd Premier of Victoria between 1992 and 1999, and currently a media commentator. He was previously the president of the Hawthorn Football Club, serving ...

and decided instead to support a minority Labor government under

Steve Bracks Stephen Phillip Bracks (born 15 October 1954) is a former Australian politician and was the 44th Premier of Victoria. He first won the electoral district of Williamstown in 1994 for the Labor Party and was party leader and premier from 1999 ...

. This led to Kennett's decision to quit not only the premiership but politics altogether. At the 2002 election, Ingram was easily re-elected, polling 41% of the primary vote and 62% of the two candidate preferred vote. At the 2006 election, Ingram won with a slightly reduced primary vote of 38%, and 53% of the two candidate preferred vote. Ingram came under heavy criticism in mid-2007 when he failed to return from holidays to his electorate which had suffered devastating floods. Ingram was defeated in the 2010 Election as John Brumby's

government was removed from office, and the

Coalition A coalition is a group formed when two or more people or groups temporarily work together to achieve a common goal. The term is most frequently used to denote a formation of power in political or economical spaces. Formation According to ''A Gui ...

regained power across Victoria. Gippsland East was returned to National Party hands, when their new candidate,

Tim Bull Timothy Owen Bull (born 9 December 1966) is an Australian politician. He has been a National Party member of the Victorian Legislative Assembly since 2010, representing the electorate of Gippsland East. He served as Minister for Local Governm ...

, gained a very large swing. Ingram received only 25.31% of the primary vote, and 37.94% of the

two-party preferred In Australian politics, the two-party-preferred vote (TPP or 2PP) is the result of an election or opinion poll after preferences have been distributed to the highest two candidates, who in some cases can be independents. For the purposes of TPP, ...

vote.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Ingram, Craig 1965 births Living people Members of the Victorian Legislative Assembly Independent members of the Parliament of Victoria People from Orbost 21st-century Australian politicians