Carmen Lawrence

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Carmen Lawrence
25th Premier of Western Australia
In office 10 February 1990 – 16 January 1993
Preceded by	Peter Dowding
Succeeded by	Richard Court
Born	2 March 1948 Northam, Western Australia
Constituency	Subiaco (state - now abolished) Fremantle (federal)
Political party	Australian Labor Party
Profession	psychologist
Religion	Roman Catholic

Dr Carmen Mary Lawrence MP (born 2 March 1948), Australian politician, former Premier of Western Australia and the first directly elected Federal President of the Australian Labor Party in 2003. She is currently the Federal member for Fremantle. Carmen Lawrence was the first female premier of an Australian state.

Lawrence was born in Northam, a country town in Western Australia. She was educated at Catholic schools including Dominican Ladies College at Dongara, and at the University of Western Australia in Perth, where she attained a PhD in psychology. She worked as a tutor at the University of Melbourne, then as a lecturer at the University of Western Australia until 1983. She then worked for three years for the Western Australian Department of Health.

During this period Lawrence joined the Labor Party. In 1986 she was elected to the Western Australian Legislative Assembly, and in 1988 she was appointed Minister for Education. The Western Australian Labor government was in a state of crisis as a result of corruption allegations against the cabinets of two successive premiers, Brian Burke and Peter Dowding, the so-called "WA Inc" period. In February 1990, Dowding was forced to resign and Lawrence replaced him as Premier.

In November 1992 the Easton Affair entered the public spotlight when a petition was tabled alleging that the Richard Court had leaked information to a party in a divorce case. On 10 November Lawrence told Parliament that she had had no prior knowledge of the petition. (Lawrence has previously suggested that issues of memory and its function will be the subject of a paper or study she may undertake. (ABC News, 7:30 Report, 23/7/99). The release of cabinet documents following the expiry of confidentiality limits may reveal the nature of proceedings at the time of Lawrence's premiership. (Refer Enid Campbell, UWA Law Review et al.).

In February 1993 the Lawrence government was defeated by the Liberals and Court became Premier. Lawrence stayed on as Opposition Leader until early 1994, when she accepted an offer from Labor Prime Minister Paul Keating to enter federal politics. In March she won a by-election for the federal seat of Fremantle (once held by Labor Prime Minister John Curtin, and later, Whitlam-era Education Minister Kim Beazley senior), and was immediately appointed Health Minister in the Keating government.

In May 1995 Premier Court ordered the Marks Royal Commission to determine only if Lawrence had prior knowledge of the petition relating to the Easton affair. On November 14, the Royal Commission determined that Lawrence had lied to the Western Australian Parliament when she denied knowledge of the petition. Keating denounced the Commission as a political stunt and accused the Commissioner, Kenneth Marks QC, of bias. Keatings Labor Government was defeated by the Liberals under John Howard at the March 1996 federal election.

Kim Beazley, also from Western Australia, became the new Labor Leader. Lawrence was elected to the Opposition frontbench and appointed Shadow Environment Minister. On the 21 February, 1997, Lawrence was charged with three counts of perjury resulting from the Marks Royal Commission. She immediately stood down from the shadow ministry. On 23 July, 1999, she was found not guilty.

In September 2000 Beazley approved her re-election to the Labor frontbench, and appointed her shadow minister for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Affairs, the Arts and Status of Women. During the November 2001 federal election campaign Lawrence strongly disapproved of the line taken by Beazley on the issue of asylum seekers (see MV Tampa), and during 2002 she became increasingly dissatisfied with Labor's position on migration and asylum seeker issues. In December 2002 she resigned, in protest, from the Shadow Cabinet.

During 2002 the Labor Party approved a series of reforms proposed by its leader Simon Crean, among them the direct election of the party's National President by the party membership (the post had previously been filled by election at the party's National Conference). The election took place in November 2003. Lawrence emerged as the candidate of the party's left faction, and campaigned in favour of a policy of better treatment for asylum seekers entering Australia.

Although she did not win an absolute majority of the votes, Lawrence topped the poll and was elected President, taking office on 1 January, 2004, shortly after Mark Latham succeeded Crean as party Leader. Her term as National President ended on 1 January, 2005, when she was succeeded by Barry Jones.

[edit] External links

• Carmen Lawrence's website

Preceded by: Peter Dowding	Premier of Western Australia 1990–1993	Succeeded by: Richard Court
Preceded by: Graham Richardson	Minister for Human Services and Health 1994–1996	Succeeded by: Michael Wooldridge

Premiers of Western Australia
Forrest | Throssell | Leake | Morgans | James | Daglish | Rason | Moore | Wilson | Scaddan | Lefroy | Colebatch | Mitchell | Collier | Willcock | Wise | McLarty | Hawke | Brand | Tonkin | C. Court | O'Connor | Burke | Dowding | Lawrence | R. Court | Gallop | Carpenter