Peter Edward James King (born 29 June 1952) is an Australian politician who 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

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 ...

from November 2001 to October 2004, representing the seat of

Wentworth Wentworth may refer to: People * Wentworth (surname) * Judith Blunt-Lytton, 16th Baroness Wentworth (1873–1957), Lady Wentworth, notable Arabian horse breeder * S. Wentworth Horton (1885–1960), New York state senator * Wentworth Miller (born 1 ...

New South Wales ) , nickname = , image_map = New South Wales in Australia.svg , map_caption = Location of New South Wales in AustraliaCoordinates: , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name = Australia , established_title = Before federation , es ...

. King is also a barrister and an author.

Early life

He was born in

Bingara, New South Wales Bingara (Aboriginal for 'creek') is a small town on the Gwydir River in Murchison County in the New England region of New South Wales, Australia. Bingara is currently the administrative centre for the Gwydir Shire that was created in 2003. The ...

, and was educated at the

Shore School , motto_translation = , established = , type = Independent school, Independent Single-sex education, single-sex and Mixed-sex education, co-educational Pre-school education, early learning, Primary sc ...

, where he was School Captain and Captain of the

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Rugby 1st XV,

Sydney University The University of Sydney (USYD), also known as Sydney University, or informally Sydney Uni, is a public research university located in Sydney, Australia. Founded in 1850, it is the oldest university in Australia and is one of the country's six ...

, where he resided at St. Paul's College, and

Oxford University Oxford () is a city in England. It is the county town and only city of Oxfordshire. In 2020, its population was estimated at 151,584. It is north-west of London, south-east of Birmingham and north-east of Bristol. The city is home to the ...

, where he gained an MA and was selected as a Rugby Blue against

Cambridge Cambridge ( ) is a university city and the county town in Cambridgeshire, England. It is located on the River Cam approximately north of London. As of the 2021 United Kingdom census, the population of Cambridge was 145,700. Cambridge bec ...

. He was

Rhodes Scholar The Rhodes Scholarship is an international postgraduate award for students to study at the University of Oxford, in the United Kingdom. Established in 1902, it is the oldest graduate scholarship in the world. It is considered among the world' ...

for

in 1975.

Early political career

He was a member of the Woollahra Municipal Council and was Mayor 1990–91. He was NSW State President of the Liberal Party 1989–92. Throughout the 1990s King was a leading advocate of the Australian monarchy, opposing the push for an Australian republic. He was unsuccessful candidate for Liberal preselection at the

1994 Warringah by-election The 1994 Warringah by-election was held in the Australian electorate of Warringah in New South Wales on 26 March 1994. The by-election was triggered by the resignation of the sitting member, Liberal MP Michael MacKellar on 18 February 1994, from ...

, losing to

Tony Abbott Anthony John Abbott (; born 4 November 1957) is a former Australian politician who served as the 28th prime minister of Australia from 2013 to 2015. He held office as the leader of the Liberal Party of Australia. Abbott was born in Londo ...

. Between November 2001 and 2004 he held the seat of

in the Australian Parliament.

Ousting by Malcolm Turnbull

In 2003, after only two years in the federal Parliament, King was challenged for his Liberal endorsement in Wentworth by

Malcolm Turnbull Malcolm Bligh Turnbull (born 24 October 1954) is an Australian former politician and businessman who served as the 29th prime minister of Australia from 2015 to 2018. He held office as leader of the Liberal Party of Australia. Turnbull grad ...

, then a wealthy merchant banker, Federal Treasurer of the Liberal Party and former head of the

Australian Republican Movement The Australian Republic Movement (ARM) is a non-party-partisan organisation campaigning for Australia to become a republic. ARM and its supporters have promoted various models of a republic including parliamentary republic and it is, again, revi ...

. During the bitter pre-selection campaign, King accused Turnbull of

branch stacking A branch, sometimes called a ramus in botany, is a woody structural member connected to the central trunk of a tree (or sometimes a shrub). Large branches are known as boughs and small branches are known as twigs. The term '' twig'' usuall ...

, by having local members transferring their membership to a branch that would decide the selection, what King referred to as "branch stripping". Following his preselection loss, on 3 September 2004 King announced that he would stand for Wentworth as an independent at the 2004 election. As a result, the traditionally Liberal electorate was turned into an electoral wildcard, with the contest becoming a three-person race between Turnbull, King and Labor candidate David Patch. During the campaign, Turnbull spent over A$600,000 on the campaign. While the Liberal primary vote fell 10.3 percent to 41.8 percent, King received 18 percent of the primary vote with a 57/43 Liberal/Labor preference split which brought Turnbull over the line, but on a reduced 55.5 percent two-party vote after a 2.4 percent swing it made Wentworth a marginal seat on paper for the first time since the 1993 election. For standing against a preselected Liberal party member, King was banned from the Liberal Party for ten years. His wife Fiona, daughter of former National Party leader

Ian Sinclair Ian McCahon Sinclair (born 10 June 1929) is a former Australian politician who served as leader of the National Party from 1984 to 1989. He was a government minister under six prime ministers, and later Speaker of the House of Representative ...

, was banned for five years.

Return to Politics

In 2015 King rejoined the Liberal Party and in July 2017 an article appeared in the ''

Australian Financial Review ''The Australian Financial Review'' (abbreviated to the ''AFR'') is an Australian business-focused, compact daily newspaper covering the current business and economic affairs of Australia and the world. The newspaper is based in Sydney, New Sou ...

'' reporting he was supporting reform of the Liberal Party preselection processes. King refused to comment when asked whether he would like to re-enter Federal Parliament. In August 2017 King and lawyer Matthew Bransgrove formed an organisation called CivilDefenceNow and began a series of lectures to Liberal Party branches in the Wentworth electorate on the dangers posed to Australia's national security by North Korea.

Legal career

King was a barrister prior to entering politics and still practises. He was a Judicial Member of the Administrative Decisions Tribunal of NSW 1995–2001. He is the author of Limitation of Liability in Australian Maritime Law (1991), and a critique of climate change policy called The Challenge of the Commons (2015). King appeared in cases for farmers against banks during the drought between 2001 and 2009 helping to keep many farmers on their farms; and in commercial and constitutional cases including the cases of Spencer v Commonwealth (2010) and Gaynor v Chief of Defence Force.

References