Michael Caltabiano (born 8 April 1964) 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

Brisbane City Council Brisbane City Council (BCC) is the democratic executive local government authority for the City of Brisbane, the capital city of the state of Queensland, Australia. The largest City Council in Australia by population and area, BCC's jurisd ...

from 1996 to 2005, and a Liberal member of the

Legislative Assembly of Queensland The Legislative Assembly of Queensland is the sole chamber of the unicameral Parliament of Queensland established under the Constitution of Queensland. Elections are held every four years and are done by full preferential voting. The Assembl ...

from 2005 to 2006. He also served briefly as the

Director-General A director general or director-general (plural: ''directors general'', ''directors-general'', ''director generals'' or ''director-generals'' ) or general director is a senior executive officer, often the chief executive officer, within a government ...

of the Department of Transport and Main Roads in the state

government of Queensland The Queensland Government is the democratic administrative authority of the States and territories of Australia, Australian state of Queensland. The Government of Queensland, a parliamentary system, parliamentary constitutional monarchy was form ...

, Australia until he was sacked by Premier

Campbell Newman Campbell Kevin Thomas Newman (born 12 August 1963) is a former Australian politician who served as the 38th Premier of Queensland from 26 March 2012 to 14 February 2015. He served as the member for Ashgrove in the Legislative Assembly of Quee ...

. Caltabiano was referred to the parliamentarian ethics committee in October 2012, after comments he made two year ago's estimates committee hearing about the employment of Ben Gommers, the son of then arts minister

Ros Bates Rosslyn Mary Bates (born 25 May 1962) is an Australian politician. Bates has been a Liberal National Party of Queensland, Liberal National Party member of the Legislative Assembly of Queensland, Parliament of Queensland since March 2009, repres ...

Early life

Caltabiano studied engineering at James Cook University and a Master of Philosophy at Nottingham University (UK) and completed a Graduate Diploma of Business at Queensland University of Technology. He worked as a civil engineer and company director.

Political career

He was appointed as a replacement Liberal Party Councillor for Chandler Ward of the

in 1996. Caltabiano replaced Liberal Graeme McDougall, who was elected to the Commonwealth seat of

Griffith Griffith may refer to: People * Griffith (name) * Griffith (surname) * Griffith (given name) Places Antarctica * Mount Griffith, Ross Dependency * Griffith Peak (Antarctica), Marie Byrd Land * Griffith Glacier, Marie Byrd Land * Griffith Rid ...

and had to resign his Council seat. Caltabiano subsequently won the 1997, 2000 and 2004 elections. Caltabiano served as Leader of the

Opposition Opposition may refer to: Arts and media * ''Opposition'' (Altars EP), 2011 EP by Christian metalcore band Altars * The Opposition (band), a London post-punk band * ''The Opposition with Jordan Klepper'', a late-night television series on Comed ...

in Brisbane City Council from 2000 until 2002, when he was ousted during a factional deal involving a dispute over representation on the State Liberal Council. He was replaced by Margaret De Wit in 2002, who was in turn replaced by

Graham Quirk Graham Quirk (born c. 1958) is a former Australian politician who served as the 16th Lord Mayor of Brisbane. From 2008 until 2011, he was Deputy Lord Mayor under Campbell Newman, succeeding the latter when Newman became the Premier of Queenslan ...

in 2003. He was responsible for writing many of the policies for Lord Mayoral candidate

and was directly responsible for writing the 2004-05 Budget as presented to Council (normally this is the Lord Mayor's duty; however Newman preferred to leave this responsibility to other Liberal councillors.). He was also actively involved in party politics, serving as Queensland state president of the Liberal Party from 2003 to 2006. In mid-2005, Labor Deputy Premier

Terry Mackenroth Terence Michael Mackenroth (16 July 1949 – 30 April 2018) was an Australian politician from Queensland, who was a member of the Labor Party. He served almost 28 years with a notable parliamentary service history and a number of ministerial r ...

resigned from politics, sparking a

by-election A by-election, also known as a special election in the United States and the Philippines, a bye-election in Ireland, a bypoll in India, or a Zimni election (Urdu: ضمنی انتخاب, supplementary election) in Pakistan, is an election used to f ...

in the seat of Chatsworth, which included Caltabiano's council ward. Caltabiano was preselected as the Liberal candidate, and faced Labor candidate Chris Forrester, who he had defeated in the previous council election. The Labor government was struggling in the polls at the time, and Caltabiano won the seat with 52.35% of the vote. Caltabiano was appointed to the shadow ministry upon his election, taking on the role of Shadow Minister for Transport. He was widely viewed as a rising star in the party, and had been tipped as a future Liberal leader. In August 2006, following the accession of

Bruce Flegg Bruce Stephen Flegg (born 10 March 1954, Sydney) is a former Australian politician. He was a member of the Queensland Legislative Assembly from 2004 to 2015, representing the electorate of Moggill in south-western Brisbane for the Liberal Party ...

to the Liberal leadership, Caltabiano was promoted to Shadow Treasurer. Premier

Peter Beattie Peter Douglas Beattie (born 18 November 1952) is an Australian former politician who served as the 36th Premier of Queensland, in office from 1998 to 2007. He was the state leader of the Labor Party from 1996 to 2007. Beattie was born in Sy ...

called an election for 9 September 2006 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 ...

preselected

Chris Bombolas Chris Bombolas (born 12 May 1960) (often known as ''Bomber'') is a communications and media specialist, and a television and radio presenter. A former sports reporter for 21 years with the Nine Network in Brisbane. A former Australian politicia ...

, a high-profile sports presenter, as its candidate. The Liberals struggled with a series of early gaffes. After a close race, Bombolas succeeded in taking the seat by several hundred votes. His wife Andrea was defeated as the Liberal National Party candidate in Chatsworth for the 2009 state election. Following the landslide Liberal National Party win in the 2012 state election, newly elected Premier

announced that Caltabiano would be appointed as Director-General of the Department of Transport and Main Roads.

Investigation

On 25 October 2012, Caltabiano was stood down as Director-General of the Department of Transport and Main Roads pending the result of an investigation into allegations of lying to parliament in budget estimate hearings

Industrial career

Caltabiano was involved with a political consultancy firm, Entree Vous. From June 2008 until he took over as Director-General of the Department of Transport and Main Roads, he was managing director of Infrastructure Delivery Pty Ltd. Following his being stood down (see 'Investigation' above) he became CEO of the Australian Asphalt Pavement Association in January 2014. In October 2016, the ARRB Group (formerly the Australian Road Research Board) announced that Caltabiano would be its next CEO, even though he had only been a board member since June of that year. He replaced retiring managing director, Gerald Waldron, in November 2016.

References

Chatsworth By-election Results
- Electoral Commission of Queensland

- By-election commentary {{DEFAULTSORT:Caltabiano, Michael 1964 births Living people Liberal Party of Australia members of the Parliament of Queensland Members of the Queensland Legislative Assembly Australian people of Sicilian descent People from Brisbane People from Townsville Australian expatriates in England Queensland University of Technology alumni 21st-century Australian politicians Alumni of the University of Nottingham