Alan Griffiths
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The Honourable Alan Griffiths |
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| Member of the Australian Parliament for Maribyrnong |
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In office 5 March 1983 – 29 January 1996 |
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| Preceded by | Moss Cass |
| Succeeded by | Bob Sercombe |
| Personal details | |
| Born |
4 September 1952 Melbourne |
| Nationality | Australian |
| Political party | Australian Labor Party |
| Alma mater | Monash University |
| Occupation | Economist |
Alan Gordon Griffiths (born 4 September 1952), is a former Australian politician who represented the Division of Maribyrnong for the Australian Labor Party from March 1983 to January 1996. Griffiths was a senior Minister in the Hawke and Keating governments and is now a businessman and non-executive director. Griffiths specialises in commercialising new technologies, including the road alignment software, Quantm, which has been used on Australasian, US and Asian infrastructure projects.
Born in Melbourne, Griffiths was one of 11 children, raised in Traralgon in the Latrobe Valley in Victoria. He understood what it meant to struggle, leaving home at 14 and entering the workforce as a scaffolder and rigger. Griffiths subsequently worked in a variety of jobs before entering politics, including as a taxi driver, political adviser and lawyer. At one point he worked as a powder monkey in the South Australian desert
Griffiths showed early entrepreneurial flair. In the early 1970s, while working in a shipyard, he raffled his first pay cheque, selling tickets to workmates and earning well above the value of his wage.
By 20 he was married and a father to two girls and, although he had left school early, Griffiths was determined to have an education. He entered university on a scholarship and worked as a taxi driver to support his family while he studied.
Griffiths graduated from Monash University in 1979 with a Bachelor of Economics and a Bachelor of Laws.
Griffiths' first contact with politics came in the early 1980s, when he worked in the office of former New South Wales Premier, Neville Wran, before being elected to the Federal seat of Maribyrnong in 1983.
Entering the parliament in 1983, Griffiths became the Minister for Resources in 1990, the Minister for Tourism in 1991 and the Minister for Industry, Technology and Regional Development in 1993.
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