Those memories left an indelible imprint on him. MacGibbon had clear childhood memories of Australia at war, including hearing of the bombing of Darwin, and of the nation’s ‘state of utter unpreparedness’: ‘Thousands of Australian 18-year olds, hopelessly under-trained in emergency conditions, with obsolete weapons were sent to the front line’ and ‘lost their lives’. His father, awarded the Military Cross when serving on the Western Front in the First World War, also enlisted for service in the Second World War. From his early years, he was acutely aware of this subject. MacGibbon believed that ‘over and above everything else, the defence of the nation is the primary responsibility of the government of the day’. He also argued that defence spending was inadequate. He believed that reducing unemployment and establishing new industries required lower taxes and an increase in industrial research and development. Making his first speech in the Senate, on 22 November 1978, MacGibbon emphasised the burden of high tariffs placed on ‘the outlying States’-Queensland, Western Australia and Tasmania-and suggested that some manufacturing industries ‘should be exposed to competition’, provided that they were not ‘essential for defence’. Re-elected in 1983, he headed the Queensland Liberal ticket at the elections of 1984, 19. Preselected in third place for the Liberal Senate ticket at the general election held on 10 December 1977, MacGibbon won the final Queensland seat, and was sworn in the Senate on 15 August 1978. He was a member of the Queensland State Executive in 19, and in 19.
MacGibbon joined the Liberal Party in 1966, serving on the Ryan area executive from 1973 to 1978, including as chairman in 19. On 9 August 1958 he married Pamela Beak the couple would have two daughters and two sons. At the time of his election to the Senate, MacGibbon was senior lecturer in restorative dentistry at the University of Queensland. He completed postgraduate studies at the University of London, and pursued a career as a specialist in fixed prosthodontics, including appointments at the University of London and University of Michigan (1971–72). MacGibbon became a fellow in dental surgery of the Royal College of Surgeons, England, in 1962, and an inaugural fellow of the Royal Australasian College of Dental Surgeons in 1965. He was educated at Maryborough High School and the University of Queensland, where he graduated as a Bachelor of Dental Science, winning the Carlisle C Bastian Prize and the Mary Moffatt Memorial Prize in 1956. David John MacGibbon was born on in Brisbane, Queensland, son of Frederick William MacGibbon, cane grower and accountant, and his wife Eva Nicholson, née Ewart.
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