Helen Buckingham

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Helen Elizabeth Buckingham (born November 17, 1952) is an Australian politician. She has been an Australian Labor Party member of the Victorian Legislative Council since November 2002, representing Koonung Province. The daughter of former state Labor leader Frank Wilkes, and a former teacher and local councillor, Buckingham has been a relatively low-profile backbencher in a term marred by a serious illness.

Buckingham was born in Melbourne, and went to secondary school in the suburb of Preston, but switched to the selective University High School for her final year. She studied teaching at La Trobe University, and took up her first position teaching history and politics at the somewhat underprivileged Pascoe Vale Girls High School. She taught there from 1975 to 1982, and then worked for a time at the private Mount Scopus College. In 1987, she received a position at Presbyterian Ladies' College, and worked there until retiring from teaching in 1991. She took up a position as a careers counsellor the following year.

Buckingham was actively involved in a number of community organisations, and was on the board of Box Hill Hospital for several years, as well as being a member of the Monash University Department of Physiology's Animal Ethics Committee. In 1997, Buckingham made a bid to be elected as a councillor for the City of Whitehorse, and was ultimately successful. She became mayor the following year, and served for two years in this capacity. Buckingham was not re-elected as mayor in 2000, but continued to serve as a councillor. She stood as the Labor candidate for the federal seat of Deakin at the 2001 election, and was thought to have a chance of winning it. However, the 2001 election was not successful for Labor, and Buckingham was defeated.

Her second bid for political office was to be more successful. She switched from federal to state politics, and won pre-selection for the Legislative Council seat of Koonung Province at the 2002 election. It was held by a strong margin by sitting Liberal member Gerald Ashman, but the election resulted in a significant landslide victory for Labor, and Buckingham soundly defeated Ashman, even before the distribution of preferences.

As with many of her Legislative Council colleagues, she has kept a relatively low profile, and has largely focused on local issues, such as preventing the closure of the Angliss Hospital, as well as committee work, serving on the Legislative Council's Education and Training and Privileges Committees. Furthermore, her term has been marred by a serious illness, the nature of which has not yet been reported, which forced her to take leave for the second half of 2004. She returned to her duties in 2005, but has kept a particularly low public profile since her illness. While on holiday in England during the year, she found herself caught up in the 7 July 2005 London bombings; she was on a train in front of one of those bombed.

Buckingham has made no statement as to whether she intends to recontest her seat at the 2006 state election. Though Buckingham would be one of the few Legislative Council members unlikely to face re-election concerns among new electoral boundaries due to be implemented at the election, her illness may well see her retire after serving only the one term.