Early life and career
Hockey was born in Sydney, New South Wales. His father, Richard Hockey, who came to Australia in 1948, was born in Bethlehem, West Bank (pre-1948 Palestine), of Armenian background - the family name was originally Hokeidonian. Hockey attended St Aloysius' College and the University of Sydney, residing at St John's College, where he graduated with degrees in Arts and Law. He was a banking and finance lawyer, and Director of Policy to the Premier of New South Wales, before entering politics.Political career
Hockey was Minister for Financial Services and Regulation 1998-2001 and Minister for Small Business and Tourism 2001-04. In October 2004 he was promoted to the Human Services portfolio, a position he held in addition to his appointment in 2006 as Minister assisting the Minister for Workplace Relations. In the January 2007 Cabinet reshuffle, Hockey was promoted to the cabinet in the position of Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations and held that position until the Howard government's defeat at the 2007 election.
Hockey regularly appeared on the Seven Network's morning program Sunrise in the 'Big Guns of Politics' section debating Opposition Leader, Kevin Rudd until the arrangement was mutually terminated on the 16 April 2007, following controversy over plans to stage a pre-dawn Anzac Day service in Vietnam.
In December 2007, Joe Hockey was made Shadow Minister for Health and Ageing, and Manager of Opposition Business in the House.
There have been talks recently about Hockey becoming the new leader of the New South Wales Liberal Party.
See Also
References
This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License.
Last updated on Sunday March 09, 2008 at 16:41:54 PDT (GMT -0700)
View this article at Wikipedia.org - Edit this article at Wikipedia.org - Donate to the Wikimedia Foundation
Copyright © 2008, Dictionary.com, LLC. All rights reserved.