Trevor Coomber
Trevor McDougall Coomber is a former Australian politician.
He was born in Charleville to schoolteacher Laurence Edward Coomber and Sybil Harding, née Lightbody, a secretary. He was educated at public schools in Pelican, Lowmead and Rosedale and at high schools in Bundaberg and Mount Gravatt. In 1970 he graduated from the University of Queensland with a Bachelor of Pharmacy, and began work as a pharmacist in Brisbane. On 8 April 1972 he married Roberta Anne Richardson, also a pharmacist; they would have four children before their separation. Coomber moved to the Gold Coast in 1973 and to Palm Beach in 1974, where he was a member of the Beach Protection Authority of Queensland and patron of several community groups.
A member of the Liberal Party since 1974, he resigned from the party in 1981 over retrospective taxation. In 1982 he was elected to Gold Coast City Council as a National, although he resigned from the party in 1986 after land development pressures on the Gold Coast led to a disagreement. During his tenure as an Alderman, he would meet and later marry Kathryn Smith, a personal assistant. After an unsuccessful run for the state seat of Currumbin as an independent in 1986, he was elected to the Queensland Legislative Assembly in 1989 as a Liberal. In 1992 he challenged National Party leader Rob Borbidge in Surfers Paradise, but was defeated.
After leaving politics, he returned to community pharmacy, operating several pharmacies under the Terry White brand. His association with Terry White strengthened, to include holding a position on the group's Board. In 2018, Coomber's operating company would enter administration and eventually be wound up by liquidators in 2019 with unsupported liabilities in the order of AU$19 million.
