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Australian politician
the former senator

Steven Fielding (born 17 October 1960) is a former Australian senator for the state of Victoria and the former federal parliamentary leader of the Family First Party. He was elected to the upper house at the 2004 federal election on two per cent of the first preference votes.

Fielding was born on 17 October 1960, in Melbourne, where he was raised in the suburb of Reservoir. His parents, Shirley and George Fielding, had a large family consisting of 16 children, and Fielding spent much of his childhood sharing a bedroom with five brothers in the family's three bedroom home. His early education was at the local Keon Park Primary School, He later attended the nearby Merrilands High School. Academically, Fielding suffered setbacks through an undiagnosed case of dyslexia, and this led to problems studying subjects such as English. Nevertheless, he excelled in mathematics, and his high marks in this subject allowed him to graduate with sufficiently high scores to gain entry into the Bachelor of Engineering degree at Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology (RMIT), where he studied electronic engineering. Upon graduating in 1983, Fielding accepted a position at Hewlett Packard, and later he moved into management at technology firms NEC and Siemens. He returned to Australia three years later, in 1995, and worked for United Energy, the Australian Yellow Pages and as a marketing manager at Vision Super. Fielding's election was not expected – Family First had only been founded two years before the election, and it was not expected to succeed in its first federal election in Victoria. As a result, Fielding was elected although his party as a whole received just 56,376 votes (1.9%) for the Senate in Victoria. When first elected, the Howard government held a slim majority in the Senate, sufficient that Fielding would only hold the balance of power if one of the government senators chose to cross the floor.

With some backbenchers being willing to cross the floor, Fielding's vote was important on some of the Howard government's more controversial legislation. His vote ensured the passage of Voluntary student unionism, the overturning of civil unions legislation in the Australian Capital Territory, and changes to media ownership laws. Conversely, his intention to vote "no" ensured the defeat of the Howard government's proposed tightening of asylum seeker laws.

In mid 2009, Fielding flew to the US on a self funded trip to discover more about climate change. He came back unconvinced that man made carbon dioxide emissions were the main driver of climate change. He subsequently voted against the Rudd government's Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme. Fielding also attended the Copenhagen Climate Conference in December 2009.

In 2009 Fielding teamed up with the coalition to defeat the government's proposed changes to the youth allowance system. He said the changes were unfair to rural and regional students and that it would leave 26,000 students worse off.

Fielding opposed the Rudd government's alcopops tax. He argued that taxing ready to drink alcohol beverages wouldn't put an end to binge drinking. He campaigned for the government to act against the practice.

Following the global financial crisis the Rudd government passed an economic stimulus package with the help of Family First. As part of the deal Fielding secured a $200 million jobs fund called 'Get Communities Working'.

At the end of his campaign in support of the Howard government's Voluntary Student Unionism legislation, which was passed, the walls of Fielding's office were vandalised with pro union graffiti.

In early 2008, Fielding reportedly considered breaking away from Family First to establish a new political party, inviting Tim Costello and other "big names" to join him. The revelations came after Fielding changed his position on abortion, after being rebuffed by his party for taking a softer approach.

Fielding gave conditional support to the mandatory ISP level filtering scheme. A spokesperson for Family First indicated that the party would want X18+ rated and refused classification (RC) content banned for everyone, including adults. Fielding's support for Internet censorship in Australia was not reported on his official website.

In June 2010, during the Senate discussion on the proposed Paid Parental Leave Scheme, Fielding suggested "some women may rort the scheme by deliberately falling pregnant and then having a late term abortion". He was subsequently criticised by all sides of Australian politics for these comments.

Fielding's use of publicity stunts was commented on by The Sydney Morning Herald. in May 2008, he joined protesting pensioners, who brought traffic to a standstill in the Melbourne CBD, when he and others took their shirts off in the style of the cab drivers who had successfully stripped for increased cab security, to demand $70 to $100 a week rise in the pension. Fielding also dressed as a giant beer bottle to promote Family First's proposed policy to introduce a bottle return scheme.

Fielding is a Christian and attends CityLife Church, a large Pentecostal church in Melbourne. He rejects evolution and has publicly espoused his belief in Young Earth creationism. Fielding has three children. He has claimed he was sexually abused by a scoutmaster and family friend for two years when he was a teenager. No one has been charged or prosecuted for the alleged offences.