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Sir Jacob Meyer
Attention: This is an incomplete entry. Please note that it may be subject to change at any time.
| Sir Jacob Meyer | |
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| Date of Birth: | 16 November 1972 |
| Place of Birth: | Sydney, Australia |
| Date of Death: | 19 May 2051 |
| Place of Death: | Armidale |
| Religion: | Jewish |
| Political Party: | National |
The Right Honourable Sir Jacob Levi Meyer KNE HMCS EC (16 November 1972 - 19 May 2051), was First Minister of New England from 27 July 2015 to 20 April 2020. Meyer was the third First Minister of New England, and the first to be elected from the National Party of New England.
- Early Life
- Political Career
- First Minister
- Retirement & Later Years
Early Life
Born in Sydney, the eldest child of Ariel and Naomi Meyer, Jacob was raised in a wealthy and privilege household. His father was a merchant banker, while his mother, originally a teacher from Israel, became a housewife after the birth of children. Meyer was one of six children, all of whom were raised according to conservative Jewish beliefs. Jacob was sent to Sydney Church of England Grammar School from 1977 until 1990 and achieved excellent results in English, legal studies, and Hebrew. He originally wished to train as a rabbi, but instead elected to study law at the University of Sydney.
In 1982, he transferred to Armidale to complete study after becoming disillusioned with city life, and his family in general. After finishing university he was quickly able to find work as a solicitor and was particularly interested in probate law. In 1984 he became a member of the National Party and was a prominent member of the Armidale branch, serving a secretary from 1986 until 2005. In 2005, Meyer became Armidale branch president, where he was on the front line of the impending conflict. Despite his attempts to prevent a split between the party and the Australian Independence Movement, he was unable to prevent the Civil War.
Political Career
Initially pro-Australian, Meyer campaigns to preserve the existing status of New England as a distinct region of Australia. He advocated heavy penalties to those who supported the rebellion and he became a target of road militia plans to eliminate opposition to the rebellion, but he managed to avoid the fate of some others will stop in 2007, the shutdown of services, itself a broken promise by the Liberal-National federal government, prompted a split in the local National Party and Meyer became leader of the faction that advocated that the rebellion was not the best option, but given the Australian reaction, they would they would now be willing to supported. By 2009, the New England National Party had been formed and Meyer led the split, and became leader of the new pro-independence party.
Meyer remained avowedly anti-war, and would oppose violence as a means of reaching independence. The New England National Party was shut out of the negotiations to the treaty of Wellington, but when it was achieved, Meyer and the party enthusiastically supported it. During the referendum liar campaign to the yes team and played a big part in swaying small businesspeople to support it. In 2011, Meyer was appointed to the Legislative Council as Leader of the New England National Party. He was made Minister of Works by Jonathon Braddock and while both sides worked well together in the Legislative Council, they both agreed to campaign separately after independence to allow a two-party system to form.
Meyer was elected to Parliament in 2012 in the constituency of South Hill. He became Opposition Leader after the election, and was instrumental in forming a coalition with the anti-independence Liberal Party, which was a rump of conservatives who despite opposing independence, had chosen to remain in New England. As a condition of the coalition, the National Party opposed rapid disengagement, not only because of the coalition arrangements, but also fearing it would cause economic ruin. The establishment of separate utility and infrastructure networks was extremely expensive, and Meyer opposed the government's seeking loans from the IMF, believing the repayments were prohibitive. The government did end up seeking a loan, but with public opinion behind Meyer, the government was convinced to keep the loan small.
First Minister
At the 2015 general election, Meyer and the National Party won a sweeping victory. Appointed First Minister by the King, Meyer now directed his government into slowing the rate of disengagement from Australia. However the Australians increased charges on utilities and services, and eventually withdrew from the Australasian Council after they refused to renegotiate on the border, which had been a condition of the Treaty of Wellington. Meyer was the first leader to advocate a claim on all land north of the Moonbi Range. This proved to be most controversial of Meyer's government, as the breakdown in relations with Australia caused a split in the government especially in Liberal Party who supported the reintegration.
Meyer also faced some major economic concerns. Isolation from Australia caused severe shortages of a number of processed items and manufactured components. A number of refugees and displaced persons were still not able to find housing all work and big and they became a significant and vocal minority advocating assistance. By early 2016 all economic indicators looked bleak. Unemployment is that at 17%, inflation at 9.7%, interest rates were an appallingly high 17.6%, and the balance of trade deficit was already at C1 billion. With opinion polls already low, the release of these indicators made it likely that the government would be routed at the polls at the next election.
In 2016, the Liberal party collapsed. Riven by fractional politicking, the party was split asunder by its relationship with the nationals. The party now split into pro-independence pro-National small "l" Liberal faction, and the anti-independence fundamentalist Christian conservative group that continued to advocate reintegration. With the support of the Nationals, the moderates were able to expel the dissenters and reform the party to prepare it a merger with the Nationals in 2018. It was now known that it was Meyer himself engineered most of the moves towards merging the parties together. For a brief period the rump conservative Liberals remained in Parliament under the name of the Conservative Liberal Party, but Meyer was able to see off their challenge in the 2019 poll.
The first National Party government was an old-fashioned conservative government. The party concentrated on economic reform, law and order, welfare reform and generous funding to the New England Defence Force. However many Nationals were moderates, and the party was tab-head in a progressive conservative direction with social policy that advocated freedom from government intervention on all personal issues, even if the motivation was an economic one. The hard-nosed attitude remained, with policies such as the party stance on drugs being especially tough.
In 2019 the new National Party was able to win a plurality of seats in the House of Assembly. With the support of two conservative independents, Meyer was able to govern for a second term, but it was obvious he could not cling to power for long. The economic setbacks were a blow to the government, especially given its determination to be known as sound economic managers. Just thirteen months later, another election was called. The United Party was making gains in all demographics, and many in the government feared a rout was brewing. On polling day, the rout did not eventuate, but the Meyer lost government to the United/SDP/Labour/Green coalition, who won a slim majority.
Later Life
After politics, Meyer settled in into doing consultancy work. After a mandatory break of four years, he was employed by Carbon Pacific as a consultant. Meyer also applied for a solicitor's licence, and was able to work as an assistant in several big-name cases of the 2020s. Meyer was recalled to public life as Chancellor in 2026, and served for just two months before the fall of the Gates government. At the end of his term and now aged just 54, many of Meyer's friends believed he would return to politics, but he refused to consider it. Instead decided to concentrate on his consultancy work, and there he remained many years. He briefly came out of retirement in 2032 to support the Tudor government after the outbreak of the Five Day War, but afterwards he was seldom seen in public again. In 2034, Meyer was honoured with a knighthood and was made a Knight of the Order of New England.
Having never married, Meyer had no family in New England, although one of his brothers did eventually migrate in January 2040 to be with his brother as his health began to decline. Indeed it was not long afterwards that Meyer had his first stroke, and was hospitalised the several weeks afterwards will stop he was released in March 2040 and while decreasing his workload, he continued to work nonetheless. In 2042 Meyer was crippled with another stroke, this time leaving him unable to work for any extended period of time is after a brief attempts to continue, he retired all consultancy work in 2043. Retiring to his large house in Armidale southern suburbs, my concentrated on gardening, writing his memoirs and enjoying the company of his many friends that he had made over his long legal, political, and business career. Despite the best medical treatment available, Meyer had another massive stroke on the 18th of May 2051, leaving him in a coma with little likelihood of recovery. His brother is rather wished to keep him alive as long as possible, but Meyer's will and testament specifically detailed the procedure that was to occur in the event of him becoming incapacitated. Following these procedures, Meyer's life-support systems were turned off in the early hours of the 19th of May 2051, and he died shortly afterwards.
A state funeral was given to New England's third First Minister, with large crowds attending. He was eulogised as being a man who brought about an end to the worst deprivations that many of the people suffered in the years after independence. Despite economic hardships that continued to rage unabated throughout his term as leader, many of the social reforms, changes in urban planning, and workplace reforms, made it possible for many more people to get work and support themselves in the new nation. Meyer is today seen as being a leader of a dark period in New England's history, who tried very hard to make the best of it everyone.
First Ministers of New England
Braddock · Olsen · Meyer · Davidson · Corbett · Yee · Gates · Tudor · Howlett · Gordon · Jones
