Lynette Fay Allison (born 21 October 1946) is an Australian politician. She was a member of the

Australian Senate The Senate is the upper house of the Bicameralism, bicameral Parliament of Australia, the lower house being the Australian House of Representatives, House of Representatives. The powers, role and composition of the Senate are set out in Chap ...

from 1996 to 2008, representing the state of

Victoria Victoria most commonly refers to: * Queen Victoria (1819–1901), Queen of the United Kingdom and Empress of India * Victoria (state), a state of Australia * Victoria, British Columbia, Canada, a provincial capital * Victoria, Seychelles, the capi ...

. she is the national president of the

Australian Democrats The Australian Democrats is a centrist political party in Australia. Founded in 1977 from a merger of the Australia Party and the New Liberal Movement, both of which were descended from Liberal Party splinter groups, it was Australia's lar ...

Early life and background

Allison was born in

Melbourne Melbourne ( , ; Boonwurrung language, Boonwurrung/ or ) is the List of Australian capital cities, capital and List of cities in Australia by population, most populous city of the States and territories of Australia, Australian state of Victori ...

, and grew up in the suburb of Fairfield with her younger brother and sister. Her father was a fitter and turner and her mother was involved in the local church, bowls club, and school tuckshop. Allison was educated at Rosanna High School, and left briefly in year 10 to become a dental nurse, before returning to complete high school. From 1964 to 1986 she worked as an administrator. She gained a Bachelor of Education at the

University of Melbourne The University of Melbourne (colloquially known as Melbourne University) is a public university, public research university located in Melbourne, Australia. Founded in 1853, it is Australia's second oldest university and the oldest in the state ...

, and from 1987 to 1991 was a high school art teacher at St Joseph's Technical School Abbotsford and St Paul's College in Altona North.

Political career

Allison was an Independent councillor of the

City of Port Melbourne The City of Port Melbourne was a local government area about southwest of Melbourne, the state capital of Victoria, Australia, on the south bank of the Yarra River. The city covered an area of , and existed from 1860 until 1994. The council a ...

from 1992 to 1994. In 1994 Allison contested the state

by-election A by-election, also known as a special election in the United States and the Philippines, or a bypoll in India, is an election used to fill an office that has become vacant between general elections. A vacancy may arise as a result of an incumben ...

for the

Victorian Legislative Assembly The Victorian Legislative Assembly is the states and territories of Australia, state lower house of the bicameral Parliament of Victoria in Australia; the state upper house being the Victorian Legislative Council. Both houses sit at Parliament H ...

district of Williamstown after the resignation of

Joan Kirner Joan Elizabeth Kirner (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 Australian Labor Party (Victorian Branch), Labor Party member of the Parliament of ...

, the former

Premier of Victoria The premier of Victoria is the head of government of the state of Victoria in Australia. The premier leads the Cabinet of Victoria and selects its ministers. The premier is appointed by the governor of Victoria, must be a member of the Vic ...

. Standing as the Democrat candidate, Allison gained 39% of the two-candidate preferred vote, with the seat won by

Labor Labour or labor may refer to: * Childbirth, the delivery of a baby * Labour (human activity), or work ** Manual labour, physical work ** Wage labour, a socioeconomic relationship between a worker and an employer ** Organized labour and the labour ...

candidate

Steve Bracks Stephen Phillip Bracks (born 15 October 1954) is a former Australian politician and was the 44th Premier of Victoria. He first won the electoral district of Williamstown in 1994 for the Labor Party and was party leader and premier from 1999 t ...

Australian Senate

Allison won pre-selection on the Democrats ticket, was elected to the

1996 1996 was designated as: * International Year for the Eradication of Poverty Events January * January 8 – A Zairean cargo plane crashes into a crowded market in the center of the capital city of the Democratic Republic of the Congo ...

, and re-elected for a second term in the 2001 federal election. Between 1998 and 2006, Allison served on the Legislation and References Committees for Environment, Recreation (later Information Technology), Communications and the Arts; and for Community Affairs. She served as Senate Select for Superannuation (1996–98); the Victorian Casino Inquiry (1996); the Lucas Heights Reactor (2000); Medicare (2003–04); and Mental Health (2005). From 1999 to 2001 Allison chaired an inquiry into the health effects of mobile phone towers. In 2002 she was a member of the Parliamentary Delegation to New Zealand. In August 2002 Allison, along with fellow senators

Aden Ridgeway Aden Derek Ridgeway (born 18 September 1962) is an Australian former politician. He was a member of the Australian Senate for New South Wales from 1999 to 2005, representing the Australian Democrats. During his term he was the only Aboriginal m ...

, John Cherry, and Andrew Murray, succeeded in forcing

Natasha Stott Despoja Natasha Jessica Stott Despoja AO (born 9 September 1969) is an Australian diplomat, gender equality advocate, former Australian of the Year nominee, and former politician. Starting her career in student politics, she became an advisor to the ...

to resign from leadership. The media did not portray the spill kindly, labelling them the '

Gang of Four The Gang of Four () was a Maoist political faction composed of four Chinese Communist Party (CCP) officials. They came to prominence during the Cultural Revolution (1966–1976) and were later charged with a series of treasonous crimes due to th ...

'. Allison was Deputy Leader of the Australian Democrats from 2002 to 2004. On 3 November 2004, following the resignation of

Andrew Bartlett Andrew John Julian Bartlett (born 4 August 1964) is an Australian politician, social worker, academic, and social campaigner who served as a Senator for Queensland from 1997 to 2008 and from 2017 to 2018. He represented the Australian Democrats ...

after the October

2004 election The following elections occurred in the year 2004. Africa * 2004 Algerian presidential election * 2004 Botswana general election * 2004 Cameroonian presidential election * 2004 Comorian legislative election * 2004 Equatorial Guinean legislativ ...

, she was elected unopposed as Leader. She took over the leadership at a time when the Democrats were at their lowest ever public opinion rating since the party was founded in 1977. On 5 December 2006, Allison introduced into the Senate a bill titled the Cluster Munitions (Prohibition) Bill 2006, which, if enacted, would prevent Australia from using, possessing and manufacturing

cluster munitions A cluster munition is a form of air-dropped or ground-launched explosive weapon that releases or ejects smaller submunitions. Commonly, this is a cluster bomb that ejects explosive bomblets that are designed to kill personnel and destroy vehi ...

. Two months earlier, she had travelled to

Lebanon Lebanon, officially the Republic of Lebanon, is a country in the Levant region of West Asia. Situated at the crossroads of the Mediterranean Basin and the Arabian Peninsula, it is bordered by Syria to the north and east, Israel to the south ...

to survey the damage caused by cluster munition use in the

2006 Israel-Lebanon War The 2006 Lebanon War was a 34-day armed conflict in Lebanon, fought between Hezbollah and Israel. The war started on 12 July 2006, and continued until a United Nations-brokered ceasefire went into effect in the morning on 14 August 2006, thoug ...

. Allison, a leading

feminist Feminism is a range of socio-political movements and ideology, ideologies that aim to define and establish the political, economic, personal, and social gender equality, equality of the sexes. Feminism holds the position that modern soci ...

in the Australian parliament, was among a cross-party group of female parliamentarians who introduced legislation into parliament in 2006 which effectively legalised the supply of the abortion pill RU486. She advocated for federal government funding for public schools and

nuclear disarmament Nuclear disarmament is the act of reducing or eliminating nuclear weapons. Its end state can also be a nuclear-weapons-free world, in which nuclear weapons are completely eliminated. The term ''denuclearization'' is also used to describe the pro ...

The 2007 Election

The 2007 federal election, including a half-Senate election, was called for 24 November, and the Democrats national campaign launched in Melbourne, Allison's home state, on 10 November. The official slogan 'bring back balance' referred to the contest for the balance of power in the Senate. Allison's seat was up for election along with three other Democrats senators (

, Andrew Murray and

) and was considered vulnerable after the Democrats poor performance in the 2004 election when the last Senate seat was won by Family First and the

Coalition A coalition is formed when two or more people or groups temporarily work together to achieve a common goal. The term is most frequently used to denote a formation of power in political, military, or economic spaces. Formation According to ''A G ...

government gained control of the Senate for the first time in over 25 years. During the 2007 election campaign, Allison announced a national preference deal with the Greens to increase the chance of a progressive party taking the balance of power in the Senate. Allison joined

Bob Brown Robert James Brown (born 27 December 1944) is an Australian former politician, medical doctor and environmentalist. He was a Australian Senate, senator and the parliamentary leader of the Australian Greens. Brown was elected to the Australian ...

and

Kate Lundy Kate Alexandra Lundy (born 15 December 1967) is an Australian former politician. She was a Labor Party member of the Australian Senate, representing the Australian Capital Territory. Lundy served as the Minister for Multicultural Affairs and t ...

in a joint political advertisement sponsored by

GetUp! GetUp! is an independent progressive Australian political activist group. It was launched in August 2005 to encourage Internet activism in Australia, though it has increasingly engaged in offline community organising. GetUp! is an independen ...

urging voters to prevent the Senate from becoming a

rubber stamp A rubber stamp is an image or pattern that has been carved, molded, laser engraved, or vulcanized onto a sheet of rubber. Rubber stamping, also called stamping, is a craft in which some type of ink made of dye or pigment is applied to a rub ...

for the government of the day. Allison received the support of community and interest groups such as the

Asylum Seeker Resource Centre The Asylum Seeker Resource Centre (ASRC) is an asylum seeker support organisation in Australia. The ASRC, based in Footscray, a suburb of Melbourne, Victoria, provides aid, justice and empowerment programs to over 1000 asylum seekers living i ...

, for her support for refugees and asylum seekers; the

Friends of the ABC The Friends of the ABC (), or simply the ABC, is a fictional association of revolutionary French republican students featured in the 1862 novel ''Les Misérables'' by Victor Hugo. In French, the name of the society is a pun, in which '' abaissé ...

, for promoting public broadcasting; and endorsements by prominent women and feminists such as Barbara Spalding and

Anne Summers Anne Summers (born 12 March 1945) is an Australian writer and columnist, best known as a leading feminist, editor and publisher. She was formerly First Assistant Secretary of the Office of the Status of Women in the Department of the Prime Min ...

. The Democrats failed to retain their seats in the Senate, with Allison losing her seat to the Labor Party candidate David Feeney. Allison's term expired on 30 June 2008, leaving the Australian Democrats with no federal representation for the first time since its founding in 1977.

Return to politics

Allison is a board member of eight organisations including Berry Street,

Vision Australia Vision Australia is a not-for-profit organization that acts as Australia's largest provider of services for blind or low vision people. Background Vision Australia was created in 2004 through the merger of the Royal Blind Society (RBS), the ...

, Alzheimer's Australia and her local nursing home. In 2012 Lyn Allison was inducted into the

Victorian Honour Roll of Women The Victorian Honour Roll of Women was established in 2001 to recognise the achievements of women from the Australian state of Victoria. It was launched by The Hon. Joan Kirner AC as a joint initiative of the Centenary of Federation Victoria Comm ...

for being a member of the Australian Senate from 1996 to 2008. On 5 October 2019, Allison became the 12th President of the Australian Democrats, resuming an active role within the party.

Personal life

Allison married when she was 21 years old, and three years later they bought a home in East St Kilda for about $11,000. They later divorced. She now lives in Port Melbourne with her long-term partner. She was Director of the Employment and Economic Development Corporation. Allison is an

atheist Atheism, in the broadest sense, is an absence of belief in the existence of deities. Less broadly, atheism is a rejection of the belief that any deities exist. In an even narrower sense, atheism is specifically the position that there no ...

who spoke first for the affirmative in a 2008 Australian

Radio National ABC Radio National, more commonly known as Radio National or simply RN, is an Australian nationwide public service radio network run by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC). From 1947 until 1985, the network was known as ABC Radio 2. ...

debate "Would We Be Better Off Without Religion?". She was awarded the Australian Humanist of the Year award in 2008 for her work in education, environment and women's rights.Australian Humanist of the year awards 2000 to current.
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Gallery

Image:Lyn_allison1.jpg, Senator Allison talks with constituents at the Palm Sunday nuclear disarmament rally 2007 Image:Lyn_allison2.jpg, Senator Allison addresses the ABC cameras at Treasury Gardens, Melbourne 2007 Image:Democrats launch2007 1.JPG, Senator Allison leads fellow Democrat senators into national federal election campaign launch in Melbourne, 2007 Image:Lynallison4.jpg, Senator Allison with Laura Chipp and Young Australian Democrats candidates during election campaign in Melbourne 2007

References

Bibliography

Lyn Allison, Senate Biography
* ttp://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,21985,21648029-5000117,00.html Nuclear Madness Threatens Us All, opinion article by Lyn Allison and Tim Wright

External links

Senator Allison's videos on YouTubeVote For Lyn - unofficial blog covering Senator Allison's campaign
{{DEFAULTSORT:Allison, Lyn 1946 births Living people Australian atheists Australian Democrats members of the Parliament of Australia Australian schoolteachers Members of the Australian Senate for Victoria Politicians from Melbourne University of Melbourne alumni Women members of the Australian Senate Leaders of the Australian Democrats 21st-century Australian politicians 21st-century Australian women politicians 20th-century Australian politicians 20th-century Australian women politicians