Carmel Maher

Carmel Maher is an Australian politician. She was a member of the Australian Capital Territory Legislative Assembly from 1989 to 1991, representing the No Self-Government Party and later the Independents Group. A moderate, low-profile and initially largely non-partisan figure, she tended to focus on social issues, and was widely respected in the assembly in its first year of operation. However, her support of the Kaine government's school and hospital closures saw her become the target of vehement criticism in parliament and she subsequently retired after only one term.

A career public servant and the mother of a young son, Maher was elected to the Assembly on the No Self-Government Party ticket at the inaugural 1989 election, amidst a backlash against the major parties for forcing self-government on a largely unwilling territory. Capitalising on the widespread perception that self-government (and its resulting cuts in federal funding), would lead to a decline in the quality of services in the territory, Maher and two colleagues, Craig Duby and David Prowse were elected. She kept a low profile during the campaign and subsequent negotiations (which saw her support Rosemary Follett's Labor government), tending to leave much of the media dealings to Duby, the party's vocal leader.

Once in the Assembly, however, the three members found they had little in common, and Maher operated as a virtual independent. She was a member of the Assembly's inaugural estimates committee, and was often praised for her chairing of the Scrutiny of Bills committee. She tended to raise issues related to the disadvantaged, such as victims of crime and domestic violence, people with disabilities and mental illness and the aged. Maher largely shunned the spotlight, however, and remained virtually unknown outside of the Assembly.

Maher's political views could not be neatly characterised on the political spectrum. She was a supporter of the independence movements in East Timor and Yugoslavia and was a supporter of gun control. At the same time, she held strongly conservative views on videos; while she acknowledged that X-rated videos were unlikely to be successfully banned and instead agreed to tax them, she proposed that all R-rated videos should be cordoned off in adults-only areas. Her views tended to be more aligned with the Roman Catholic-influenced civil rights advocacy of Bernard Collaery's Residents Rally than either of her party colleagues, and she was frequently praised by Collaery in parliament.

In November 1989, only eight months into her term, Residents Rally dropped their support of the Follett minority government, and Liberal leader Trevor Kaine approached Maher and her two colleagues about forming a government. As the concept of being a party diametrically opposed to self-government yet participating in that government was somewhat absurd, the three MLAs agreed to disband the party, reforming as the Independents Group, a loose coalition, the next day.

For the first year of the Kaine government, Maher's role as a low-profile and largely non-partisan figure remained essentially the same. In late 1990, however, Kaine required Maher's support to pass a swath of school closures, as well as the closure of the Royal Canberra Hospital. As a member of the government, Maher dutifully backed the Kaine legislation, even though this somewhat contradicted her election platform. As a result, in a short space of time, she changed from a member with virtually no enemies to being the target of vehement attacks in parliament by the Labor opposition and left-leaning independent Michael Moore, as well as some of the rage by disgruntled parents.

In late 1991, the Kaine minority government collapsed, and the two remaining members of the Independents Group (Prowse having joined the Liberal Party in 1990) became largely irrelevant figures on the crossbench. Duby, sensing the writing on the wall with the oncoming 1992 election, founded his own party, the Hare-Clark Independent Party, in an (unsuccessful) attempt to save his career, but Maher, who was particularly unlikely to be re-elected due to her low public profile, decided to retire at the election. She subsequently returned to the public service, and while having little role in public life since, was recently involved in the creation of the territory's homelessness strategy, "Breaking the Cycle".