Joe Scalzi

Giuseppe "Joe" Scalzi (born 4 July 1951) is a former Australian politician. He was a Liberal Party of Australia member of the South Australian House of Assembly between 1993 and 2006, representing the electorate of Hartley.

Early life

Scalzi was a high school teacher before entering parliament.

From 2006 he returned to work as a high school teacher, now teaching at Glenunga International High School where he teaches SOSE.

His son, Joel Scalzi, was a contestant on the 2007 season of Big Brother. When asked how far his son would make it on Big Brother he replied, in reference to his own short stature "I always knew my son would make it on to the shortlist".

Parliament

In 1993, he was elected amidst the Liberal landslide victory that year, which saw Dean Brown become Premier. Scalzi very narrowly retained his seat despite an 11.7 percent swing at the 1997 election reducing him to a margin of 0.7 percent.

Joe Scalzi was a member of the public works committee that in 2001, made the deeply unpopular decision to sell the Payneham Civic Centre to JPMorgan Chase whereupon it was demolished and the land was used as the site for offices for financial services despite protests by residents.