Janet Frances Powell AM (née McDonald, 29 September 194230 September 2013) was an Australian politician. A native of Nhill, Victoria, Powell was educated at Ballarat Grammar School and Nhill High School. She graduated from the University of Melbourne with a Bachelor of Arts and a Diploma of Education. She then worked as a secondary school teacher at Kerang High School and Nhill High School.''Who's Who in Australia 2013'', Crown Content, 2012.

Political career

Powell was active in the Australian Democrats 1980s, serving as the party's Victorian state president (1983–85) and a national deputy president (1984–86). In 1986, she was appointed a Democrat senator for Victoria, upon the resignation of the party's founder, Don Chipp. She was elected the following year. Following the announcement of the 1987 Senate election results, Powell was one of four senators who received a six-year term as a consequence of which method was chosen to allocate the seats. She became the third elected leader of the party, from 1 July 1990 to 19 August 1991, when she was deposed in a coup promoted by the party's Queensland division with national executive support. The charge that she had "failed to lift the profile of the party" during her tenure of a year was unsuccessful as justification, and her openly acknowledged relationship with party colleague

Sid Spindler Siegfried Emil "Sid" Spindler (9 July 19321 March 2008) was an Australian politician who served as a Senator for Victoria from 1990 to 1996, representing the Australian Democrats. Early life Spindler was born in Łódź, Poland, to an ethnic Ger ...

was used as leverage to remove her from the leadership. The party's founding leader, Don Chipp, described the coup as the "most tragic story to have hit the Democrats". One suggested reason for the coup was that she was controversially negotiating a coalition or merger with the Greens. After internal disagreements related to her loss of the leadership, she resigned from the party in 1992 and continued as an independent senator until her defeat at the

1993 File:1993 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The Oslo I Accord is signed in an attempt to resolve the Israeli–Palestinian conflict; The Russian White House is shelled during the 1993 Russian constitutional crisis; Czechoslovakia is peace ...

election. After quitting the Democrats, she reminded the Senate of her non-partisan approach in pursuit of reforms, including a successful private senator's bill:

"In the six years that I have been in this place I have valued most highly the cooperative work that I have been able to do with colleagues on all sides of the chamber...for example, I reflect on the magnificent work done by former Senator Peter Baume which played a large part in enabling the passage, unopposed, through the Parliament of my private member's Bill which banned the print advertising of tobacco products. On the other side, I look forward to a successful result on the question of discrimination against homosexuals in the armed forces as a result of important strategic cooperation between myself, Senator Margaret Reynolds and other Labor Party backbenchers."Senator Janet Powell: Statement by leave
Senate Hansard 18 August 1992

In 1996, she campaigned for Greens leader Bob Brown and, in 2004, she joined the

Australian Greens The Australian Greens, commonly known as The Greens, are a confederation of Green state and territory political parties in Australia. As of the 2022 federal election, the Greens are the third largest political party in Australia by vote and th ...

, citing that they were more capable of achieving the function of a third force in Australian politics. In the

2006 Victorian state election The 2006 Victorian state election, held on Saturday, 25 November 2006, was for the 56th Parliament of Victoria. Just over 3 million Victorians registered to vote elected 88 members to the Legislative Assembly and, for the first time, 40 member ...

she unsuccessfully stood for the Greens in the

Eastern Metropolitan Region North-Eastern Metropolitan Region, previously Eastern Metropolitan Region between 2006 and 2022, is one of the eight electoral regions of Victoria, Australia, which elects five members to the Victorian Legislative Council (also referred to as t ...

Community service

Janet Powell was a member of the Patrons Council of the Epilepsy Foundation of Victoria, a Life Member of YWCA Victoria, and also an inaugural appointee to the Victorian Honour Roll of Women in 2000 "for services to the community". In the 2012 Queen's Birthday Honours list, she was appointed a Member of the Order of Australia, in recognition of her service to the Parliament and people of Australia, "particularly through leadership of YWCA Victoria".

References

External links

Janet Powell, Senate Biography
*Luntz Stephen
Missing a Mentor
Obituary, at Wordpress.com, 1 October 2013 * Milne, Christinebr>Tribute to Janet Powell AM
at Parliament of Australia, 2 October 2013 * {{DEFAULTSORT:Powell, Janet 1942 births 2013 deaths Australian Democrats members of the Parliament of Australia Australian Greens candidates Members of the Australian Senate Members of the Australian Senate for Victoria Women members of the Australian Senate Members of the Order of Australia Australian schoolteachers Deaths from pancreatic cancer Deaths from cancer in Victoria (Australia) Independent members of the Parliament of Australia Leaders of the Australian Democrats 20th-century Australian politicians 20th-century Australian women politicians