Robert Lindsay Collins AO (8 February 194621 September 2007) was a Labor Party member of the Australian Senate from July 1987 to March 1998, representing the Northern Territory. Prior to entering the Senate, Collins was a member of the Northern Territory Legislative Assembly from 1977 to 1987, and Leader of the Territory Opposition from 1981 to 1986. He was the first Northern Territorian to become a federal minister. He committed suicide after being charged with child sex offences. Early life Born into a working-class family in Newcastle in 1946, Collins left school at the age of 15 and worked briefly on a cotton farm. In 1967, he moved to the Northern Territory, where he found work at the Department of Agriculture in the town of Katherine. By 1974, he was working for the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) and St John Ambulance when Cyclone Tracy struck the city of Darwin. Territory politics |} Collins first became politically active in the late 1970s while employed as a market gardener and wildlife officer in the indigenous community of Maningrida in Arnhem Land. In 1977, he was asked to run for the Labor Party in the seat of Arnhem, which he did, successfully gaining a seat in the second parliament of the Northern Territory Legislative Assembly. He was Leader of the Opposition from 1981 to 1986 while the Country Liberal Party held power, switching to the newly created seat of Arafura in December 1983. At the territorial election of 1983, his party was defeated; and incumbent Chief Minister Paul Everingham was the victor. Collins was Leader of the Opposition in the Northern Territory for four years, championing the then unpopular causes of overturning the verdict against Lindy Chamberlain over the disappearance of her daughter Azaria at Uluru; and backing the return of Uluru to its traditional owners. Federal politics and the Senate At the 1987 federal election, Collins was elected to the Australian Senate representing the Northern Territory. He served as a senator for almost eleven years. The Prime Minister Bob Hawke chose Collins as Minister for Shipping on 4 April 1990, and a month later Aviation Support was added to his portfolio. He also served as Minister assisting the Prime Minister for Northern Australia. In May 1992, Prime Minister Paul Keating elevated Collins to the Cabinet as Minister for Transport and Communications. In December 1993, he was made Minister for