Ross Free

Ross Vincent Free (born 7 March 1943) is a former Australian politician who served as a Labor member of the Australian House of Representatives representing the seat of Macquarie from 1980 until 1984, then Lindsay from 1984 until 1996. He served as a minister from 1980 until 1996 in both the Hawke and Keating ministries.

Biography Free was born in Bathurst, New South Wales, and completed a Bachelor of Science (Honours) and Graduate Diploma of Education at the University of Sydney, following which he worked as a school teacher.

Free won Labor preselection for the outer Sydney federal seat of Macquarie ahead of the 1980 election, and defeated the incumbent Liberal member Reg Gillard. He served as a member of several house standing parliamentary committees, in opposition and then in government upon Hawke winning the prime ministership in 1983. When a redistribution ahead of the 1984 election erased most of his majority in Macquarie, he transferred to the newly created seat of Lindsay, based around Penrith. In 1985 he led a delegation to the European Parliamentary Institutions in Strasbourg and Berlin, and again in Germany in 1986.