Carmen Lawrence

Carmen Lawrence

Carmen Mary Lawrence (born March 2, 1948 in Northam , Western Australia ) is an Australian politician .

biography

Professional and political career in Western Australia

After attending school, she studied psychology at the University of Western Australia from 1965 to 1968 , which she completed with a Bachelor of Science (B.Sc.). She then worked from 1969 to 1979 as a research assistant, tutor, part-time lecturer and research psychologist in Perth and Melbourne , before becoming a tutor until 1983 and then a full-time lecturer at the Faculty of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciencesat the University of Western Australia. Between 1983 and 1986 she worked in the Research and Evaluation Department of the Department of Health's Psychiatric Service. In 1993 she also obtained a doctorate ( Ph.D. ) with distinction from UWA .

Carmen Lawrence began her political career when she was elected as a candidate for the Australian Labor Party (ALP) for the Legislative Assembly of Western Australia in 1986 . Just two years later, in February 1988, Prime Minister Peter Dowding appointed her Minister of Education in the state government. In 1989, she also took over the Office of Aboriginal Affairs .

On February 12, 1990, she was the successor to Dowding herself Prime Minister of Western Australia and Treasurer, making it the first female Prime Minister of an Australian state . She has also served as Minister for Public Service Administration, Women's Affairs, Family, Multicultural , Ethnic, and Aboriginal Affairs.

When her party was defeated in the 1993 legislative election, she lost the office of Prime Minister on February 16, 1993 to Richard Court of the Liberal Party of Australia .

Minister in the Federal Cabinet and leaving politics

After a short time in the opposition as Treasury and Secretary of Labor in the shadow cabinet of her party, the possibility in national politics arose for them to participate as they at a by-election (by-election) in the constituency Freemantle of March 12, 1994 deputies Australian House of Representatives was elected. Less than two weeks later, on March 25, 1994 , she appointed Prime Minister Paul Keating as Minister of Health in his cabinet. It seemed only a matter of time before she would also become Australia's first female Prime Minister. But from the start of her work as Minister of Health, she was under constant criticism from her former political opponents in Western Australia. The state government of her successor Richard Court set up a Royal Commission in 1995, which soon became a kind of “witch hunt” to destroy her political career, which many observers saw. This commission was instructed to investigate whether Lawrence had committed unjustified abuse of power in connection with the submission of a petition to Western Australias parliament in 1992 in connection with perjury statements against a Penny Easton who committed suicide a few days later . This brought her to the verge of resignation, but she was still supported by Keating. Nevertheless, this affair was probably one of the reasons for the ALP's defeat in the 1996 federal elections when it lost 31 of its 80 seats in the Australian House of Representatives.

Reconciliation, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Affairs, Arts and Women

In the following period, however, she was part of the opposition leadership ("Frontbench") in parliament between 1996 and 1997 and from 2000 to 2002 as shadow minister for reconciliation, affairs of the Aborigines and the Torres Strait islanders , art and women and was last from 2004 to 2005 President of the ALP and thus again not only the first President of the ALP, but again the first woman as President of a party in Australia.

In 2007 she left the House of Representatives as a member of parliament.

Currently, she is a high school teacher (Professorial Fellow ) at the University of Western Australia operates.

Web links

• Carmen Lawrence-Member for Freemantle 1994-2007
• The Australians Women's Register
• National Archives of Australia
• rulers.org