page_title: Carmen Lawrence
section_title: After Parliament
hierarchical_section_title: Carmen Lawrence / Federal political career / After Parliament
caption_attribution_description: English: Former WA Premier and Federal Minister Carmen Lawrence, in June 2013.Image has been cropped.
context_page_description: Carmen Mary Lawrence is an Australian academic and former politician who was the Premier of Western Australia from 1990 to 1993, the first woman to become the premier of an Australian state. A member of the Labor Party, she later entered federal politics as a member of the House of Representatives from 1994 to 2007, and served as a minister in the Keating Government.
  Lawrence was born in Northam, Western Australia. She studied psychology at the University of Western Australia, obtaining a doctorate in 1983, and before entering politics worked as a lecturer and researcher. Lawrence was elected to state parliament in 1986, and became a government minister in 1988. She replaced Peter Dowding as premier in 1990, as Australia's second female head of government and first female state premier. She and the Labor Party lost power at the 1993 state election.
  In 1994, Lawrence entered federal parliament through a by-election for the Division of Fremantle. She was almost immediately appointed to cabinet by Paul Keating, serving as Minister for Human Services and Health and Minister for Women until the government's defeat in 1996.
context_section_description: As foreshadowed in her announcement of March 2007, Lawrence did not contest the federal election held on 24 November 2007, thereby retiring from Parliament.
  She was succeeded as Member for Fremantle by Melissa Parke, also of the ALP.
  Following her departure from the federal Parliament, Lawrence was engaged for a term, in 2008, as a Professorial Fellow at the University of Western Australia. Her brief was to conduct collaborative research with a focus on the origins of fanaticism and extreme behaviour, including terrorism, under the auspices of the University's Institute of Advanced Studies.
caption: Lawrence in 2013
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