Joan Kirner


Joan Kirner

Joan kirner.jpg
Kirner in 1991
42nd Premier of Victoria
Elections: 1992
In office
10 August 1990 – 6 October 1992
MonarchElizabeth II
GovernorDavis McCaughey
Richard McGarvie
DeputyJim Kennan
Preceded byJohn Cain Jr.
Succeeded byJeff Kennett
22nd Deputy Premier of Victoria
In office
7 February 1989 – 10 August 1990
PremierJohn Cain Jr.
Preceded byRobert Fordham
Succeeded byJim Kennan
Leader of the Opposition of Victoria
In office
6 October 1992 – 22 March 1993
PremierJeff Kennett
DeputyJim Kennan
Preceded byJeff Kennett
Succeeded byJim Kennan
Leader of the Labor Party in Victoria
In office
9 August 1990 – 22 March 1993
DeputyJim Kennan
Preceded byJohn Cain Jr.
Succeeded byJim Kennan
Member of the Victorian Legislative Assembly for Williamstown
In office
1 October 1988 – 27 May 1994
Preceded byGordon Stirling
Succeeded bySteve Bracks
Member of the Victorian Legislative Council for Melbourne West
In office
3 April 1982 – 30 September 1988
Preceded byBon Thomas
Succeeded byLicia Kokocinski
Personal details
Born
Joan Elizabeth Hood

(1938-06-20)20 June 1938
Essendon, Victoria, Australia
Died1 June 2015(2015-06-01) (aged 76)
Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
NationalityAustralian
Political partyLabor
Spouse(s)Ronald George Kirner (m. 1960)
ChildrenMichael, Kate, and David
Alma materUniversity of Melbourne
ProfessionTeacher
[1][2][3][4]

Joan Elizabeth Kirner AC (née Hood; 20 June 1938 – 1 June 2015) was an Australian politician who was the 42nd Premier of Victoria, serving from 1990 to 1992. A Labor Party member of the Parliament of Victoria from 1982 to 1994, she was a member of the Legislative Council before later winning a seat in the Legislative Assembly. Kirner was a minister and briefly deputy premier in the government of John Cain Jr., and succeeded him as premier following his resignation. She was Australia's third female head of government and second female premier, Victoria's first, and held the position until her party was defeated in a landslide at the 1992 state election.

Early life and career

Born Joan Elizabeth Hood in Essendon, Melbourne, the only child of John Keith and Beryl Edith (née Cole) Hood, a fitter and turner and music teacher respectively, Kirner was educated at state and private schools. She graduated in arts from the University of Melbourne, and completed a teaching qualification. She taught in state schools and became active in school and parents' organisations. In 1960 she married Ron Kirner, with whom she had three children. She was President of the Victorian Federation of States School Parents' Clubs, an influential education lobby from 1971 to 1977 and its executive officer from 1978 to 1982. She was appointed to several government advisory bodies on education.[5]

Entry into state politics

Kirner joined the Labor Party in 1978 and became a member of its Socialist Left faction.[6] In 1982, she was elected as a Labor member of the Victorian Legislative Council, the upper house of the Victorian Parliament. In 1985, she was elected to the Cabinet of John Cain Jr's Labor government and became Minister for Conservation, Forests and Lands. She proposed the Flora and Fauna Guarantee Act 1988, the first Australian legislation which gave legal protection of rare species.[7] While Minister, and in association with Heather Mitchell from the Victorian Farmers' Federation, Kirner was instrumental in the formation of the first Landcare groups.

At the 1988 election, Kirner shifted to the Legislative Assembly, becoming MP for Williamstown, and was promoted to the Education portfolio.[8] In this portfolio Kirner carried out a series of controversial reforms aimed at reducing what Kirner saw as the class-based inequity of the education system, culminating in a new system of assessment, the Victorian Certificate of Education.[9]

Premiership

Later in 1988 Kirner was elected deputy leader of the party and became Deputy Premier of Victoria. When Cain resigned after a collapse in his political support in August 1990, Kirner was elected Labor leader and thus became Victoria's first female Premier. By this time the Labor government was in deep crisis, with some of the state's financial institutions on the brink of insolvency, the budget deficit unsustainably high and growing and the Labor Party deeply divided on how to respond to the situation. The party hoped that the elevation of a popular woman as its new leader would improve its position, but Kirner never succeeded in gaining control of the crisis into which the state had plunged. The conservative-leaning Melbourne newspaper, the Herald Sun, reacted unfavorably to a Premier from the Socialist Left, dubbing her "Mother Russia". She was lampooned alternatively as a sinister commissar and as a frumpy housewife in a polka dot dress. She seemed unfazed by the Herald Sun and gradually won some respect, though she was unable to improve the government's standing significantly.

During 1991 and 1992 Kirner took several decisions to cut government spending and raise revenue to some extent, however her government failed to cut spending in many areas including education. Most of the Kirner Government attempts to cut spending were actively opposed by trade unions and some members of the government. The interest bill alone was $3.5 billion per year,[10] the government sold off trains and trams and leased them back. Another decision was the sale of the state-owned State Bank of Victoria to the Commonwealth Bank in 1991.[11]

Kirner went into 1992 knowing she faced a statutory general election, one which opinion polls gave her virtually no chance of winning. She waited as long as she could, finally calling an election for October. It was obvious as soon as the writs were dropped that Labor would not win a fourth term. Although she remained personally more popular than the Liberal Opposition Leader, Jeff Kennett, it was not nearly enough to overcome Victorians' growing anger at Labor. The Coalition's "Guilty Party" campaign did much to stoke this anger, targeting many Ministers in the Kirner Government and providing examples of concerns in their portfolios.

The campaign attracted controversy with ALP ads stating that if the Liberals won the election it would institute the same policies that were implemented in New Zealand by the then Fourth National Government. New Zealand Prime Minister Jim Bolger responded in reference to the campaign, "You know, they say that the show’s never over until the fat lady sings. Well, I think it was her we heard warming up in the wings this week".

The "fat lady" was in reference to Kirner being overweight. Bolger refused to apologize for this remark citing that he himself was overweight and did not want to make "an international incident" out of it. It did, however, anger women from Bolger's own National Party.[12]

The Coalition won the election in a landslide, scoring a 19-seat swing—the second-worst defeat that a sitting government has ever suffered in Victoria. The Liberals actually won enough seats that they could have governed in their own right. Kirner remained Opposition Leader for a short period before resigning. She retired from Parliament in 1994 and was succeeded by one of her former aides for the electorate of Williamstown, future premier Steve Bracks.[13]

A portrait of Kirner painted by Adelaide artist Annette Bezor in 1994[14] hangs in Queen's Hall at Parliament House Victoria.

Life after Parliament

Kirner in 2013

After leaving Parliament, Kirner remained active in community affairs and politics. Initially this led her to a leading role in the Landcare movement. Subsequently, she devoted her energies to the Australian affiliate of EMILY's List Australia, an organisation which promotes pro-choice women's careers in politics. Kirner was one of the leaders of the movement in the Labor Party to adopt a policy of setting targets for the number of women candidates in winnable electorates. She repeatedly publicly supported candidates identified with her Socialist Left faction. From January 2006, Kirner was the Chair of the Ministerial Advisory Committee for Victorian Communities.

Kirner was also a board member of Museum Victoria, operators of Melbourne Museum, Royal Exhibition Building, Scienceworks Museum and Immigration Museum, Melbourne. Kirner was a long-time advocate of abortion law reform to legalise abortion. She was an avid supporter of the Essendon Football Club.[15]

In 1993, she famously appeared on The Late Show with colleague David White, MLC for Doutta Galla, in a musical skit performing Joan Jett's "I Love Rock 'n' Roll". This brief performance was covered nationally by the media.

In an August 2009 interview with GTV-9, Kirner revealed that she had suffered a heavy near-fatal fall at a meeting 18 months earlier. She also revealed that she had osteoporosis and was blind in one eye.[16]

Death

In August 2013 it was announced that Kirner had been diagnosed with oesophageal cancer and was undergoing chemotherapy and radiation treatment.[17] Kirner died on 1 June 2015, 19 days short of her 77th birthday.[1]

Honours

On 26 January 1980, she was named a Member of the Order of Australia for her community service.[18]

On 1 January 2001, Kirner was awarded the Centenary Medal.[19]

On 11 June 2012, she was named a Companion of the Order of Australia for "eminent service to the Parliament of Victoria and to the community through conservation initiatives, contributions to gender equality, the development of education and training programs and the pursuit of civil rights and social inclusion."[20]

In May 2017 the Victorian Government recognised her legacy by offering 25 scholarships to young women, who will participate in the Joan Kirner Young and Emerging Women Leaders program.[21]

In May 2019, the new specialist maternity and paediatric centre at Sunshine Hospital was named the Joan Kirner Women's and Children's Hospital.[22]

One of two tunnel boring machines (TBM) to be utilised on the Metro Tunnel project is named Joan, in honour of Kirner.[23] This TBM was officially launched on 15 August 2019.[24]

See also

References

  1. ^ a b "Former Victorian premier Joan Kirner dies aged 76". ABC News. 1 June 2015. Retrieved 1 June 2015.
  2. ^ Wallace, Rick (1 June 2015). "Joan Kirner, first female premier of Victoria, dies aged 76". The Australian. Retrieved 1 June 2015.
  3. ^ Curtin, Jennifer (1 June 2015). "Joan Kirner obituary: the woman premier who represented many firsts". The Sydney Morning Herald. Retrieved 7 June 2015.
  4. ^ O'Connor, Heather (2014). "Kirner, Joan Elizabeth". The Encyclopedia of Women and Leadership in Twentieth-Century Australia. Australian Women's Archives Project. ISBN 978-0-7340-4873-8. Retrieved 1 June 2015.
  5. ^ "Vale Joan Kirner". Radio National. Retrieved 3 March 2016.
  6. ^ Dow, Aisha (2 June 2015). "Victoria's first female premier Joan Kirner dies aged 76". The Age. Retrieved 9 March 2016.
  7. ^ "Victorian National Parks Association / Publications / Nature news hub / Vale Joan Kirner - 1938-2015". vnpa.org.au. Archived from the original on 3 March 2017. Retrieved 2 March 2017.
  8. ^ "Kirner, Joan Elizabeth". Re-member. Parliament of Victoria. Retrieved 8 August 2013.
  9. ^ Power, Rachel (6 June 2015). "The feminist legacy of Joan Kirner". The Age. Retrieved 3 March 2016.
  10. ^ "Labor And Coalition at Odds Over Reduction in State Debt". houserefinancing.com.au. Archived from the original on 23 October 2015.
  11. ^ Hugo Armstrong (1992), "The Tricontinental Affair", in Mark Considine and Brian Costar (eds.), Trials in Power. Cain, Kirner and Victoria 1982–1992, Melbourne University Press, Carlton, Chapter 3
  12. ^ https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/nz-leader-stands-by-his-fat-lady-insult-1539710.html
  13. ^ "Williamstown - Victorian Election 2014". ABC News. Retrieved 3 March 2016.
  14. ^ "Annette Bezor". Design & Art Australia Online. Retrieved 2 April 2020.
  15. ^ Jim Main, Aussie Rules: For Dummies (2nd edition, 2008), p. 13.
  16. ^ Higginbottom, Nick (4 August 2009). "Former Premier Joan Kirner tells of nearly dieing [sic] after fall". Herald Sun. Retrieved 8 August 2013.[dead link]
  17. ^ Cook, Henrietta (6 August 2013). "Cancer battle for Joan Kirner, former Victoria Labor premier". The Age. Retrieved 6 August 2013.
  18. ^ "Joan Elizabeth Kirner AM". Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet. Retrieved 11 June 2012.[permanent dead link]
  19. ^ "Joan Elizabeth Kirner". Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet. Retrieved 11 June 2012.[permanent dead link]
  20. ^ "Companion (AC) in the General Division of the Order of Australia – The Queen's Birthday 2012 Honours Lists" (PDF). Official Secretary to the Governor-General of Australia. 11 June 2012. p. 6. Archived from the original (PDF) on 16 June 2012.
  21. ^ "Joan Kirner Young and Emerging Women Leaders program". Victorian Government. Retrieved 20 June 2017.[permanent dead link]
  22. ^ Joan Kirner Women's and Children's Hospital officially opened
  23. ^ Taylor, Alistair. "Melbourne Metro's first TBM arrives, named after Victoria's first female premier". Urban. Retrieved 15 August 2019.
  24. ^ Zhuang, Yan. "A saint, a cricket captain and a former premier: Metro Tunnel project to break ground". The Age. Retrieved 15 August 2019.

External links

Victorian Legislative Council
Preceded by
Herbert "Bon" Thomas
Member for Melbourne West
1982–1988
Succeeded by
Licia Kokocinski
Victorian Legislative Assembly
Preceded by
Gordon Stirling
Member for Williamstown
1988–1994
Succeeded by
Steve Bracks
Political offices
Preceded by
Rob Mackenzie
Minister for Conservation, Forests and Lands
1985–1988
Succeeded by
Kay Setches
Preceded by
Caroline Hogg
Minister for Education
1988–1990
Succeeded by
Barry Pullen
Preceded by
Robert Fordham
Deputy Premier of Victoria
1989–1990
Succeeded by
Jim Kennan
Preceded by
John Cain (junior)
Premier of Victoria
1990–1992
Succeeded by
Jeff Kennett
Party political offices
Preceded by
John Cain (junior)
Leader of the Labor Party in Victoria
1990–1993
Succeeded by
Jim Kennan

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