#ausvotes

Born into a pioneering farming family, after finishing high school, Tony Crook worked his father’s 350, 000 acre sheep station just south of Kalgoorlie. Eventually owning and running the property with his wife, they sold it in 2006 and Tony and his brother now run a pastoral consultancy and management business in Kalgoorlie.

The local community has been the focus of Crook’s attention for many years. He has been awarded many honours for service to the Royal Flying Doctor Service where he was President. He is Chair of the St Mary’s Primary School and John Paul College boards, President of the Eastern Goldfields Highland Dancing Association and Goldfields Equestrian Committee. He was Kalgoorlie/Boulder Citizen of the Year in 2004.

Crook has run unsuccessfully for the Senate in 2007, and for Kalgoorlie in the 2008 W.A. State elections.

He has many years experience in running businesses and is a member of the National Party of Western Australia. The Nationals are a federated organisation but the WA Nationals are entirely autonomous.

His electorate of O’Connor is an electorate of over 900,000km2 and takes up almost half of Western Australia. In 2010 he was successful in winning it from 30 year incumbent Liberal Party candidate Wilson Tuckey.

The W.A. Nationals are fiercely independent and campaigned in 2010 as expressly disassociated from the National Party of Australia. When Crook became a Member of the Federal Parliament, he was very particular to criticise the media for including him in Coalition numbers, and maintaining his party’s autonomy, insisted on sitting at the cross-bench.

When discussions were underway to form a government out of the hung parliament, Crook declared support and confidence for the Coalition, but declined to attend party room meetings for The Nationals or for The Coalition. He has always reminded the Parliament that he is free to vote with either side of politics, and is simply bound to the best interests of his electorate. Consequently, he has supported the Government on no less than 30 occasions, including the Flood Levy and the Federal-State Health Agreement, but as could well be expected, has been torridly against the carbon tax and the mining tax. With the success of the bill hinging on Tony Crook, when the Government was unable to pass the Malaysia Solution legislation through the Lower House, it was due to Crooks dissent.

Crook is a Conservative from the Australian bush who has been a small businessman for his entire working life. He has given greatly of himself to the local community. While the W.A. Nationals are vehemently independent, his values are essentially conservative.

Since May 2012 and with the approval of his party, Tony Crook has left the cross-bench and now sits with the Nationals and the Coalition. While not attending Coalition joint party room meetings he has reignited an alliance with the Federal Nationals.