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Revision as of 01:46, 23 October 2006
Richard Alex Gordon Dalla-Riva (born April 6, 1963) is an Australian politician. He has been a Liberal member of the Victorian Legislative Council since November 2002, representing East Yarra Province. He is the current Liberal Shadow Minister for Scrutiny of Government and Manufacturing and Export.
Dalla-Riva was born in the regional town of Orbost, but grew up in Beechworth, before moving to Melbourne. After graduating from Macleod High School, he joined the police force, and was promoted to the rank of detective in 1988. He worked in a number of areas associated with financial crime, including the major fraud and asset recovery squads, and also spent time working for the National Crime Authority.
While still working in the police force, he studied business at the Phillip Institute of Technology (now part of the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology). In 1995, after seven years as a detective, Dalla-Riva left the police force, and took up a position as a manager with Woolworths Limited. He worked in a variety of management positions through the late 1990s, and received an MBA from the University of Southern Queensland in 1998.
In 2000, Dalla-Riva began to take an active political role, becoming chairman of the Liberal Party's electorate council for East Yarra Province. This was rewarded when he won Liberal pre-selection to contest the seat at the 2002 election. He was elected amidst a major swing against the Liberal Party, with the loss of many seats across the state. As a result, Dalla-Riva found appointed as spokesperson for the corrections portfolio, covering the state's prison system. In this role, he attacked alleged overcrowding in prisons, as well as proposals for home detention, which he suggested would be scrapped if the Liberal Party were to gain power.
In January 2004, Dalla-Riva was given the additional portfolio of scrutiny of government, replacing David Davis, who had been recently promoted. This saw Dalla-Riva handed the responsibility of investigating alleged government abuses, and as a result, playing a major role in the opposition's attacks on the government. In August 2004, he led a successful campaign against leaked proposed guidelines for state bureaucrats which would have encouraged them to provide standardised answers to questions from the opposition, and limited the opposition's ability to scrutinise the government. In the aftermath of the public controversy, the proposals were dumped by Premier Steve Bracks.