Matthew Ryan Mason-Cox is an Australian politician serving as

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of the

New South Wales Legislative Council The New South Wales Legislative Council, often referred to as the upper house, is one of the two chambers of the parliament of the Australian state of New South Wales. The other is the Legislative Assembly. Both sit at Parliament House in th ...

since 4 May 2021. He is a member of the

for the Liberal Party since 28 September 2006, with a short two-week stint as an Independent in May 2021. Mason-Cox was the Minister for Fair Trading between May 2014 and April 2015 in the

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ministry (one of the shortest ministerial careers in NSW) and served as Leader of the Liberal Party of Australia in the Legislative Council during 2014 and 2015.

Personal life

Mason-Cox operated an optometry business in the city of

Queanbeyan Queanbeyan ( ) is a city in the south-eastern region of New South Wales, Australia, located adjacent to the Australian Capital Territory in the Southern Tablelands region. Located on the Queanbeyan River, the city is the council seat of the ...

, New South Wales. He later served at senior levels in the

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and served as secretary and senior adviser to a number of Federal Parliamentary committees including the

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Sub-Committee and the Family Law Committee inquiry into the Child Support Scheme. Mason-Cox was also Corporate Counsel to Elders IXL Ltd in Adelaide and trained as a solicitor at Freehills in Sydney. Mason-Cox holds a Bachelor of Laws degree and a Bachelor of Commerce (Finance) degree from the

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 ...

, where he was awarded the University Prize for Banking Law. Mason-Cox is married to Wendy Mason-Cox and has four children.

Political career

In 2006, Mason-Cox stood for Liberal Party preselection for a Southern New South Wales regional ballot position for election the New South Wales Legislative Council prior to the 2007 election, challenging incumbent Patricia Forsythe. Mason-Cox would ordinarily have been formally elected to the Legislative Council at the 2007 election, but Forsythe resigned on 13 September 2006. and Mason-Cox was appointed to the resulting casual vacancy and was sworn in as a Member of the Legislative Council on 28 September 2006. Because Mason-Cox took his seat prior to the 2007 election, he was eligible for the Parliamentary Contributory Superannuation Scheme which guarantees him a taxpayer funded pension for life based on his final parliamentary salary. Mason-Cox raised the state of infrastructure in the Monaro region and the ongoing battle between New South Wales and the

Australian Capital Territory The Australian Capital Territory (commonly abbreviated as ACT), known as the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) until 1938, is a landlocked federal territory of Australia containing the national capital Canberra and some surrounding townships. ...

over water rights in the Queanbeyan region as early legislative priorities. Mason-Cox was appointed as the Minister for Fair Trading, in May 2014, but was not appointed to the second Baird ministry following the 2015 state election and following reports he attempted to sack a well-respected senior career bureaucrat for not involving him in a media blitz over faulty USB chargers. He was briefly the leader of the Liberal Party in the Legislative Council during 2014 and 2015 but was not the Government leader in the Council. Mason-Cox was elected President of the Legislative Council on 4 May 2021 after a dispute over the election of President after the resignation of

John Ajaka John George Ajaka (born 13 January 1956), an Australian politician, was a member of the New South Wales Legislative Council from 2007 to 2021, representing the Liberal Party and he is the first Liberal Party Lebanese Australian member of an Au ...

. Government nominee and fellow Liberal MLC

Natasha Maclaren-Jones Natasha Marianne Maclaren-Jones (born 11 March 1976) is an Australian politician, and is a Liberal Party member of the New South Wales Legislative Council since March 2011. Maclaren-Jones has served as the Minister for Families and Communities ...

received 20 votes against the 14 votes of Peter Primrose, the nominee of the Labor opposition, in addition to eight informal votes. The clerk ruled that a majority of the 42 available votes was required for election, although the Liberal Party presented advice from the Crown Solicitor that a plurality of the votes was sufficient and congratulated Maclaren-Jones on her election. As the dispute over the presidency continued, Maclaren-Jones assumed the chair without being declared elected by the clerk on the night of 4 May 2021, before losing a vote of no confidence less than 90 minutes later. On the subsequent ballot to elect a new president, Mason-Cox nominated for the role and won the election with 23 votes to Maclaren-Jones's 18 with the support of the opposition and the crossbench. On assuming the chair, he pledged to be an independent and impartial president, and announced he would no longer attend party room meetings. On 5 May 2021, Mason-Cox was expelled from the Liberal Party after he nominated himself for the position against the Premier's pick. His membership was re-instated two weeks later. Transport Minister Andrew Constance believes Mason-Cox standing and winning the Legislative Council presidency was in retaliation for being dumped as a minister in 2015 by then-premier Mike Baird.

Views

Mason-Cox has been described as "hardline anti-abortion". In 2019, he and two other Liberal MPs attempted to move a leadership spill against

Gladys Berejiklian Gladys Berejiklian (born 22 September 1970) is an Australian former politician who served as the 45th premier of New South Wales and the leader of the New South Wales division of the Liberal Party from 2017 to 2021. Berejiklian became a member ...

after she supported the decriminalisation of abortion.

References

External links

{{DEFAULTSORT:Mason-Cox, Matthew Liberal Party of Australia members of the Parliament of New South Wales Living people Members of the New South Wales Legislative Council Presidents of the New South Wales Legislative Council 21st-century Australian politicians Year of birth missing (living people)