Kenneth "Ken" Turner is a former Australia

Australia

Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...

n politician. He was born in Brisbane

Brisbane

Brisbane is the capital and most populous city in the Australian state of Queensland and the third most populous city in Australia. Brisbane's metropolitan area has a population of over 2 million, and the South East Queensland urban conurbation, centred around Brisbane, encompasses a population of...

. Before his involvement in politics he was a commercial fisherman, and served in the Citizens Military Force 1961–1965. In 1998 he was elected to the Queensland Legislative Assembly

Queensland Legislative Assembly

The Queensland Legislative Assembly is the unicameral chamber of the Parliament of Queensland. Elections are held approximately once every three years. Voting is by the Optional Preferential Voting form of the Alternative Vote system...

 as a member of Pauline Hanson

Pauline Hanson

Pauline Lee Hanson is an Australian politician and former leader of Pauline Hanson's One Nation, a political party with a populist and anti-multiculturalism platform...

's One Nation, representing the seat of Thuringowa

Electoral district of Thuringowa

The district of Thuringowa is an electorate in the Legislative Assembly of the state of Queensland, Australia.The division encompasses suburbs of the former City of Thuringowa on the western edge of Townsville in North Queensland, stretching from Deeragun in the north to Kelso in the south...

. He was appointed Spokesperson for Communication, Local Government, Planning, Reginal and Rural Communities, Environment, Heritage and Natural Resources, and Primary Industries on 7 August. On 6 February 1999, together with party colleagues Dorothy Pratt

Dorothy Pratt

Dorothy Ruth "Dolly" Pratt is an Australian politician. Born in Coffs Harbour, New South Wales, she was a Justice of the Peace and coffee shop proprietor in Queensland before entering politics. She also worked at cattle sale yards. In 1998, she was elected to the Queensland Legislative Assembly as...

 and Shaun Nelson

Shaun Nelson

Shaun Nelson is an Australian politician. He was a member of the Queensland Legislative Assembly from 1998 to 2001, representing the electorate of Tablelands. He was elected as one of 11 MPs of the One Nation Party at the 1998 state election, before resigning from the party to sit as an...

, he resigned from One Nation to sit as an independent

Independent (politician)

In politics, an independent or non-party politician is an individual not affiliated to any political party. Independents may hold a centrist viewpoint between those of major political parties, a viewpoint more extreme than any major party, or they may have a viewpoint based on issues that they do...

. He was defeated by Labor

Australian Labor Party

The Australian Labor Party is an Australian political party. It has been the governing party of the Commonwealth of Australia since the 2007 federal election. Julia Gillard is the party's federal parliamentary leader and Prime Minister of Australia...

's Anita Phillips

Anita Phillips

Anita Frances Phillips is a former Australian politician. She studied at the University of Melbourne, receiving a Diploma of Social Studies in 1968 and a Bachelor of Arts in 1976. In 1969, she moved to Townsville in Queensland and became a social worker...

 in 2001. He contested Thuringowa again at the 2009 state election

Queensland state election, 2009

The Queensland state election was held to elect members to the unicameral Parliament of Queensland on 21 March 2009. The election saw the incumbent Labor government led by Premier Anna Bligh defeat the Liberal National Party of Queensland led by Opposition Leader Lawrence Springborg, and gain a...

 against sitting Labor MP Craig Wallace

Craig Wallace

Craig Andrew Wallace is an Australian politician. He is the member for Thuringowa in the Queensland State Parliament, to which he was elected to on 7 February 2004....

, but received only around 11% of the vote.