western European countries that supplied him with billions of dollars of armaments, and with the technology for chemical and nuclear warfare. France built Saddam's nuclear reactor. In the years 1983 to 1989, United States trade with Iraq increased from $571M to $3.6 billion. Only one month before the invasion, the United States Department of Commerce tried to push through a $7.6m deal to sell Iraq nuclear parts. He successfully opposed the appointment of an Indonesian general involved in East Timor as ambassador to Australia. He also introduced a private member's bill for citizen initiated referendums as practised in Switzerland. He served on the transport and communications committee for six years. Mack chose to retire from federal parliament at the 1996 election for the same reason he had previously chosen to retire from state parliament − to avoid receiving a parliamentary pension. When the Liberals held their preselection contest for the seat, they did not know at the time that Mack would not renominate, and Joe Hockey won the nomination with very little opposition. It is widely believed that Hockey would have faced a more rigorous preselection contest had it been known that Mack was retiring. North Sydney had always been a comfortably safe Liberal seat on a "traditional" two-party preferred basis, and it had been an almost foregone conclusion that it would revert to the Liberals once Mack retired. As expected, Hockey easily won the seat, and later went on to serve in various ministerial roles including Treasurer. Post-political life Mack was elected as an independent Republican delegate to the Australian Constitutional Convention. He opposed the model favoured by the Australian Republican Movement. Along with Clem Jones, he was a director of Real Republic and was appointed to the official ten person "no" committee for the 1999 referendum. In 1997, Ted Mack was elected as one of the one hundred "National Living Treasures", organised by the National Trust of Australia. After his retirement from federal parliament he was an occasional media political commentator, and was chosen to deliver the 2013 Sir Henry Parkes Oration entitled "The State of the Federation" at . 2015 North Sydney by-election Ahead of the 2015 North Sydney by-election held on 5 December, Mack re-entered the federal political arena by announcing he would steer the campaign of independent candidate Stephen Ruff, which had the support of some disgruntled Liberal supporters. A senior orthopaedic surgeon at Royal