Gary Roy Nairn (born 3 January 1951) is a former Australian politician. Nairn was born in Sydney, and was educated at Sydney Boys High School from 1963 to 1968 before attending

University of New South Wales The University of New South Wales (UNSW), also known as UNSW Sydney, is a public research university based in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. It is one of the founding members of Group of Eight, a coalition of Australian research-intensive ...

. He was a surveyor in private practice and managing director of a surveying and mapping consultancy before entering politics. He moved to the

Northern Territory The Northern Territory (commonly abbreviated as NT; formally the Northern Territory of Australia) is an states and territories of Australia, Australian territory in the central and central northern regions of Australia. The Northern Territory ...

where he lived for many years. He was President of the Country Liberal Party between 1990 and 1994, during which time the CLP won two elections with an increased vote. Nairn returned to New South Wales and in March 1996 was elected a

Liberal Party of Australia The Liberal Party of Australia is a centre-right political party in Australia, one of the two major parties in Australian politics, along with the centre-left Australian Labor Party. It was founded in 1944 as the successor to the United Au ...

member of the

Australian House of Representatives The House of Representatives is the lower house of the bicameral Parliament of Australia, the upper house being the Senate. Its composition and powers are established in Chapter I of the Constitution of Australia. The term of members of the ...

, representing the seat of Eden-Monaro. In 2003, he headed a federal inquiry into the

2003 Canberra bushfires The 2003 Canberra bushfires caused severe damage to the suburbs and outer areas of Canberra, the capital city of Australia, during 18–22 January 2003. Almost 70% of the Australian Capital Territory's (ACT) pastures, pine plantations, and nat ...

. He was appointed Parliamentary Secretary to Prime Minister

John Howard John Winston Howard (born 26 July 1939) is an Australian former politician who served as the 25th prime minister of Australia from 1996 to 2007, holding office as leader of the Liberal Party. His eleven-year tenure as prime minister is the s ...

in October 2004. In January 2006 he was promoted to the

front bench In many parliaments and other similar assemblies, seating is typically arranged in banks or rows, with each political party or caucus grouped together. The spokespeople for each group will often sit at the front of their group, and are then kn ...

Special Minister of State The Special Minister of State (SMOS) in the Government of Australia is a position currently held by Don Farrell since 1 June 2022, following the Australian federal election in 2022. The minister is responsible for various parliamentary, elector ...

which included responsibilities with Ministerial and Parliamentary Services, the Australian Government Information Management Office, Australian Electoral Commission,

Defence Housing Authority Defence Housing Authority (DHA) ( ur, ). It is a Government of Pakistan owned real-estate development company that governs housing and municipal services for Defence neighbourhoods across Pakistan. It is the first largest residential community in ...

and

Film Australia Film Australia was a company established by the Government of Australia to produce films about Australia in 1973. Its predecessors were the Cinema and Photographic Branch (1913–38), the Australian National Film Board (1939–1955, under diffe ...

. He served in Howard's outer ministry. Nairn's hold on Eden-Monaro was always rather tenuous. For most of the time since the late 1960s, the seat has been highly marginal; it had been held by the party of government without interruption since 1972. Even in the midst of a massive swing to the Coalition in 2004, for instance, Nairn only managed a swing of 0.4 percent. In September 2007, Nairn's chief of staff, Peter Phelps, engaged in a heated verbal exchange with the Labor Party candidate for Eden-Monaro, Mike Kelly at a forum on the

Iraq War {{Infobox military conflict , conflict = Iraq War {{Nobold, {{lang, ar, حرب العراق (Arabic) {{Nobold, {{lang, ku, شەڕی عێراق (Kurdish languages, Kurdish) , partof = the Iraq conflict (2003–present), I ...

in Queanbeyan, New South Wales. At the meeting Phelps claimed that Mike Kelly was a hypocrite as a former soldier running for the ALP when they are opposed to the war in Iraq. Phelps stated at the meeting that he thought Kelly was using the

Nuremberg defence Superior orders, also known as the Nuremberg defense or just following orders, is a plea in a court of law that a person, whether a member of the military, law enforcement, a firefighting force, or the civilian population, should not be considered ...

, and compared it to the kind of defence used by guards at the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp. Nairn did not agree with his staffer's sentiments. In the

2007 federal election This electoral calendar 2007 lists the national/federal direct elections held in 2007 in the de jure and de facto sovereign states and their dependent territories. Referendums are included, although they are not elections. By-elections are not i ...

, Nairn lost his seat to Labor candidate Mike Kelly. Nairn was one of five members of the Howard ministry to lose their seats at the election. In 2018 Gary was appointed Chairman of The Duke of Edinburgh's International Award – Australia.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Nairn, Gary 1951 births Living people Liberal Party of Australia members of the Parliament of Australia Members of the Australian House of Representatives for Eden-Monaro Members of the Australian House of Representatives Officers of the Order of Australia University of New South Wales alumni 21st-century Australian politicians 20th-century Australian politicians