Giuseppe "Joe" Scalzi (born 4 July 1951) is a former Australian politician. He was a

Liberal Party The Liberal Party is any of many political parties around the world. The meaning of ''liberal'' varies around the world, ranging from liberal conservatism on the right to social liberalism on the left. __TOC__ Active liberal parties This is a li ...

member of the

South Australian House of Assembly The House of Assembly, or lower house, is one of the two chambers of the Parliament of South Australia. The other is the South Australian Legislative Council, Legislative Council. It sits in Parliament House, Adelaide, Parliament House in the st ...

between 1993 and 2006, representing the electorate of Hartley.

Early life

Scalzi was a high school teacher before entering parliament.

Political career

In 1993, he was elected amidst the Liberal landslide victory that year, which saw

Dean Brown Dean may refer to: People * Dean (given name) * Dean (surname), a surname of Anglo-Saxon English origin * Dean (South Korean singer), a stage name for singer Kwon Hyuk * Dean Delannoit, a Belgian singer most known by the mononym Dean Titles * ...

become Premier. Scalzi very narrowly retained his seat despite an 11.7 percent swing at the 1997 election reducing him to a margin of 0.7 percent. Joe Scalzi was a member of the public works committee that in 2001, made the deeply unpopular decision to sell the Payneham Civic Centre to

JPMorgan Chase JPMorgan Chase & Co. is an American multinational investment bank and financial services holding company headquartered in New York City and incorporated in Delaware. As of 2022, JPMorgan Chase is the largest bank in the United States, the ...

whereupon it was demolished and the land was used as the site for offices for financial services despite protests by residents. At the 2002 election, Scalzi had to defend the most marginal Liberal seat in the state, but managed to increase his margin to 1.3 percent. Despite this Scalzi remained a "fairly low-key figure" only obtaining a position as a parliamentary secretary in April 2004 when he became secretary for training. He was also one of a small number of Liberals to support a bill the cut the number of pokies in

South Australia South Australia (commonly abbreviated as SA) is a state in the southern central part of Australia. It covers some of the most arid parts of the country. With a total land area of , it is the fourth-largest of Australia's states and territories ...

by 20 percent. Scalzi lost his seat in the 2006 election landslide to the ALP, giving his Labor opponent

Grace Portolesi Grace Portolesi (born 26 June 1968) is an Australian politician who represented the South Australian House of Assembly seat of Hartley from 2006 to 2014 for the Labor Party. Previously the parliamentary secretary assisting the Attorney-Genera ...

a 4.6 percent margin. He failed to regain the seat at the 2010 election and lost Liberal preselection in Hartley to

Vincent Tarzia Vincent Anthony Tarzia (born 24 September 1986) is an Australian politician representing the South Australian House of Assembly seat of Hartley for the South Australian Division of the Liberal Party of Australia since the 2014 state election. ...

for the 2014 election.

After politics

From 2006 Scalzi returned to work as a

high school A secondary school describes an institution that provides secondary education and also usually includes the building where this takes place. Some secondary schools provide both '' lower secondary education'' (ages 11 to 14) and ''upper seconda ...

teacher, teaching History, SOSE and Italian at Valley View Secondary School and at

Glenunga International High School Glenunga International High School (GIHS), formerly Glenunga High School (GHS), is a publicly-funded international school in Adelaide, South Australia. It is located approximately south-east of the Adelaide city centre in the suburb of Glenu ...

. His son, Joel Scalzi, was a contestant on the 2007 season of ''Big Brother''. When asked how far his son would make it on ''Big Brother'' he replied, in reference to his own short stature "I always knew my son would make it on to the shortlist".

References

External links

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Scalzi, Joe Liberal Party of Australia members of the Parliament of South Australia 1951 births Living people Members of the South Australian House of Assembly Australian politicians of Italian descent 21st-century Australian politicians