Gareth Evans (politician)

Gareth John Evans AC, QC ( born September 5, 1944 in Melbourne, Victoria ) is an Australian politician and was, among others, Foreign Minister of the country.

Early life

Evans was born in Melbourne, Victoria, the son of a tram driver. He attended Melbourne High School and the University of Melbourne, where he earned a degree in arts and law, such as the renowned University of Oxford where he successfully completed a combined study of philosophy, politics and economics. In 2004 he became an honorary member of Magdalen College, Oxford. He worked as a lawyer in Melbourne, where he specialized in labor unions. From 1971 he was a lecturer in law at the University of Melbourne.

Evans has been active since his student days in the Australian Labor Party, did not pull in the elections in 1975, however, in the Senate. After the failure of Whitlam Government Evans supported as a member of the right wing of the Labor Party Bob Hawke. He has also acted as a civil rights activist and became Vice President of Victoria Council for Civil Liberties.

Political career

In 1977, Evans was first elected to the Senate and was from 1980 the Attorney General of the opposition. He helped to replace Bill Hayden by Hawke as Labor chairman. The subsequent federal elections in 1983 won Hawke. Evans eventually became Minister of Justice and caused a controversy when he was shooting the Royal Australian Air Force surveillance photo of a dam in Tasmania. The government was accused of the misuse of military units for Internal Affairs, which Evans the nickname " Biggles " after a famous cartoon character, a pilot, earned.

In December 1984, Evans was transferred to the post of resources and energy minister. In 1987 he was transport and Telekomunikationsminister - a task for which he showed little interest. His ambition was to inherit Hayden as Foreign Minister, what happened in September 1988, when Governor-General of Australia that was. The next 7 1/2 year Evans served as foreign minister.

As foreign minister, his goal was to direct the foreign policy of his country away from traditional partners United States of America and Great Britain and to deal more with the Asian neighbors. While this was achieved, relations with the U.S. and GB cooled down quickly, as Evans did not share the political views of these governments.

He helped with the liberation of Cambodia from the occupation by Vietnam, which led to free elections in 1993. Because of the improved relations through him to Asian Neighbors trade cooperation, APEC and ASEAN emerged. In 1995 he received the Grawemeyer Award for his excellent foreign policy. Under Keating Evans in 1993 government leaders in the Australian Senate and helped to improve some major domestic affairs, so they managed among other things, from the obligation to be dependent on the small parties in each bill to facilitate the government.

Evans had long expressed a desire to retire from the Senate in the Australian House of Representatives, where he hoped to be able to put his leadership ambitions easier. While he was in 1984 failed because of the socialist left, he was able to move in 1996 for the Melbourne constituency Holt in the House of Representatives. Since the Keating government lost in the election, he moved as an opposition deputy in the Senate and was deputy leader of the Australian Labor Party.

Due to the electoral defeat of his party in the federal elections of 1998, he resigned in September 1999 from active politics.

Private

Evans is married and has two children.