Jodeen Carney

Jodeen Terese Carney (born December 9, 1965) is an Australian politician. She has been a Country Liberal Party member of the Northern Territory Legislative Assembly since September 2001, representing the Alice Springs-based electorate of Araluen. She is the Shadow Attorney-General, and Shadow Minister for Justice, Health, Family and Community Services, Business and Industry, Women's Policy, Territory Development, the AustralAsia Railway, Police, Fire and Emergency Services, Central Australia and Defence Support. Until 29 January 2008 she was also the Opposition Leader.

Biography

Early life

Carney was born in Melbourne, Victoria, and studied at Bendigo High School before commencing a law degree at the University of Melbourne. She graduated in 1989, and moved to Alice Springs the following year in order to do her articles. In 1990, she was admitted to legal practice, and worked as a solicitor for the next seven years. In 1997, she opened her own local practice, which she operated until deciding to contest pre-selection for the Legislative Assembly seat of Araluen at the 2001 election.

Career

Carney's bid for the pre-selection gained some media attention, as she was a reasonably high-profile candidate, but she was ultimately overlooked by the Alice Springs branch. However, John Elferink, a sitting MP who had lost his preselection, complained to the party's Central Council, making claims of branch-stacking. The fallout from the letter was immense - on November 25, 2000, in what was dubbed by the local media as "The Night of the Long Knives", all the preselections of the Alice Springs branch were overturned, and the Central Council instead dictated who would run as a CLP candidate. Elferink was reinstated, Carney gained preselection for Araluen, and sitting MP and Minister Loraine Braham was axed to make way for Peter Harvey, who had previously been chosen over Carney in Araluen. While the controversial and largely unprecedented decision from head office would almost ensure her a seat in parliament, it earned her many enemies in the local branch of the party.

While Araluen had been a reasonably safe seat for the Country Liberal Party, Carney faced a significant challenge from the Australian Labor Party candidate and two well-known independents. The CLP's vote dropped 27% from the 1997 election, the last contested by her long-running predecssor, Eric Poole, although she eventually achieved victory by 134 votes.

As a new opposition MLA, Carney immediately took on responsibility for several portfolios, including tourism, correctional services and communications. While she often acted as a conservative voice in the assembly on many issues, advocating a particularly hard line on issues of law and order (including mandatory sentencing) and drug policy, this was not always the case, as she also clashed with her own party on several issues - most notably in 2003, when she crossed the floor to vote with the ALP in supporting legislation decreasing the age of consent for gay males.

In mid-2003, Deputy Opposition Leader Mike Reed resigned, and Carney was widely tipped as the favourite to succeed him. However, in a surprise result - widely put down to both her poor relationship with the influential Alice Springs branch and her support, against their wishes, for Denis Burke's leadership, she was defeated by Dr.Richard Lim. However, she soon changed sides and decided to support Mills after Burke refused to allow a conscience vote on the age of consent legislation. She was subsequently promoted, being made Shadow Attorney-General and Shadow Minister for Justice, and then again in late 2004, being made Shadow Minister for Health.

Carney faced her first re-election bid at the 2005 election. While commentators were generally divided on whether she would hold her seat, as it was the CLP's most marginal, almost no one expected the final result. On election day, there were massive and unprecedented swings to the Australian Labor Party in every seat in the Territory - except Araluen. While Burke, who had not long before regained the leadership, lost his seat of Brennan, which was the safest CLP seat in the Territory, Carney easily held her seat with a swing in her favour in the vicinity of 5%.

Burke had already announced that he would stand down as leader if he lost the election, and as it became clear that he would lose his seat, making this moot, speculation turned to who would replace him. With Mills unlikely to take up the leadership again after having resigned as leader not long before on the grounds that he had been ineffective, and potential aspirants John Elferink and Sue Carter having been defeated, Carney emerged as the leading candidate, and was ultimately chosen as Burke's replacement.

Though she had not been Opposition Leader for long, Carney oversaw a change in Country Liberal Party policy, shifting it notably to the left - such as attacking the government's law and order policies from a humanitarian, rather than hardline perspective - a position more traditionally aligned with the current government. She adopted a somewhat more congenial attitude towards Chief Minister Clare Martin than her predecessor and tended to be more subtle in her means of attacking Martin.

On 29 January 2008, Terry Mills replaced Carney as opposition leader in a party-room ballot. [cite news|url=http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2008/01/29/2149206.htm|title=Mills replaces Carney as CLP leader|work=ABC Online|date=29 January 2008|accessdate=2008-01-29]

Notes and references

External links

* [http://www.jodeencarney.com Official site]