Jaye Radisich
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Jaye Amber Radisich (born March 29, 1976) is an Australian politician. She has been an Australian Labor Party member of the Western Australian Legislative Assembly since 2001, representing the electorate of Swan Hills. Radisich is the youngest member of the current parliament and the youngest woman ever to be elected to the Western Australian parliament.
Radisich was born and raised in Perth. She attended Mount Lawley Senior High School, where she was active in the student council, and won the belle of the ball class of 1993. Radisich went on to study arts and law at the University of Western Australia. Radisich became involved in student politics while at university, and served as a member of the National Union of Students executive, and the Vice-President (Asia-Pacific) of the International Union of Socialist Youth. While at university, she worked two jobs, as a check-out operator at a budget cosmetics chain and a research officer. She was juggling these commitments with the final year of her degree when she won pre-selection to contest the theoretically safe Liberal seat of Swan Hills as the Labor candidate for the 2001 state election.
Swan Hills was held by a sitting Liberal minister in the Court government, June van de Klashorst, and in the leadup to the poll, there was little sign that she was in any danger of losing the seat. In a major upset, the Labor vote increased enough that Radisich was able to narrowly defeat van de Klashorst with the assistance of Liberals for Forests and One Nation preferences. She became the second-youngest person, and the youngest woman, to be elected to the Western Australian parliament.
Radisich was struck down by a rare form of cancer in the early months of her term, and she continued to work while undergoing chemotherapy. She had a kidney removed in 2002, and ultimately recovered. While she was not appointed to the ministry, she served on the Joint Standing Committee on the Anti-Commission Corruption and the Public Accounts Committee during her term.
She faced re-election at the February 2005 election, and was widely expected to lose her seat, due to the surprise result that had elected her in 2001 and a redistribution that had further slashed her tenuous margin. A poll in early February had suggested that Radisich was twenty points behind her Liberal opponent, Steve Blizard, and most commentators - most notably Antony Green[citation needed] - had virtually written off Radisich. However, as the election drew closer, a number of analysts began to predict that she could hold on. These assertions were proved correct when, on election day, Radisich received a swing of more than 3%, and held onto her seat.
Radisich had been tipped as a likely future minister, but was overlooked on a number of occasions. In the leadup to the forthcoming state election, due for late 2008 or early 2009, Radisich sought preselection for the new seat of West Swan, due to a redistribution making her hold on the seat of Swan Hills again highly tenuous. However, after reports stating that she would likely lose West Swan to Rita Saffioti, the chief of staff to Premier Alan Carpenter, she announced that she would retire from politics at the next election. Radisich expressed a desire to pursue other ambitions, including post-graduate study and public policy interests at a Federal level.[1][2]
