Louise Pratt
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Louise Clare Pratt (born April 18, 1972) is an Australian politician. She is currently an Australian Labor Party Senator-elect for Western Australia, and will take up her seat in July 2008, after her election at the 2007 federal election. She had been assured of election after winning the first position on the Labor ticket, defeating incumbent Senator Ruth Webber in a preselection contest. Pratt previously served as a member of the Western Australian Legislative Council from 2001 to 2007 [1]. She was the youngest woman ever elected to the Legislative Council at the time of her election, and was the second openly lesbian woman to be elected to an Australian parliament.
[edit] Biography
Pratt was born in Kalgoorlie, and grew up in the outer hills suburbs of Perth, where she attended Eastern Hills Senior High School. She studied arts at the University of Western Australia, where she became involved in student politics. After taking on a number of positions at her campus, she was elected as the state education officer for the National Union of Students, as well as a member of its national executive, in 1994.
After university, Pratt became involved in gay rights activism, serving as a regular spokesperson for Gay and Lesbian Equality, a prominent advocacy group in the state. This saw her addressing issues such as discrimination, unequal age of consent laws, homophobia in schools and property rights, and frequently saw her clash with the conservative Liberal Party of Australia government of Richard Court. It also saw Pratt working in concert with fellow activist Brian Greig, who later went on to become an Australian Democrats Senator.
Pratt remained active in the Labor Party outside of student politics, and was the Labor candidate in the then-safe Liberal state seat of Alfred Cove at the 1996 state election. She worked at various times for former MLA Megan Anwyl, Jim McGinty, Geoff Gallop, and federal MP Carmen Lawrence. It was while working as electorate officer for Lawrence that Pratt won the third position on the Labor ticket for the East Metropolitan Region at the 2001 state election. Labor won the election against expectations, and Pratt scraped into the final seat in the region, becoming the youngest woman ever elected to the Legislative Council.
Pratt took her seat with the new term of the Legislative Council in May 2001. Her maiden speech was notable for the suggestion that the voting age in the state should be dropped to 16, but her first major contribution came in July, when she was appointed to a gay and lesbian law reform committee with a wide mandate to eliminate discrimination in state law. Pratt, along with lesbian Green MP Giz Watson, played a major role in the committee, which ultimately made a wide range of recommendations. The committee's recommendations were largely taken into law with the 2002 passage of the Acts Amendment (Lesbian and Gay Law Reform) Act 2002. Amongst the reforms included in the act were a complete ban on discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation, the granting of the right for same-sex couples to adopt children, a lowering of the age of consent from 21 to 16, the right for same-sex couples to inherit from a deceased partner, and the repeal of legislation which had made it an offence to promote homosexuality in schools.
After the conclusion of the law reform debate, Pratt became relatively less vocal in the media and received some criticism in the state media for making only 24 speeches in her first 15 months in parliament. However, she was no less active in her role - taking up the issue of greenhouse emissions through her position on the Standing Committee on Environment and Public Affairs, and advocating for midwife led models of care in maternity services. She was comfortably re-elected at the 2005 state election, and was promoted to chair of the Environment and Public Affairs committee after the election. She also continued to pursue her interests in midwifery services through her role as a member of the Public Obstetric Services Select Committee, and served as Chair of the State Government Adoption Legislation Review Committee. Pratt made some headlines again in December 2005, arguing for the introduction of civil union legislation in the state, but has so far been unsuccessful in this endeavour.
Pratt began campaigning for Labor preselection for a Senate seat for the 2007 federal election in mid-2006. She received wide cross-factional support, and achieved a shock victory in October, topping the poll to win first position on the Labor ticket ahead of incumbent Senators Mark Bishop and Ruth Webber. This resulted in Webber's subsequent defeat at the general election after being dropped to the only marginally winnable third position. Pratt subsequently resigned from her Legislative Council seat in October 2007, and as the highest-placed Labor candidate, was easily elected to the Senate in November. She will take up her seat at the swearing in of the new Senate in July 2008. Batong Pham, a former political staffer, was appointed to Pratt's former Legislative Council seat on November 26, 2007.
