Elaine Elizabeth Darling (''née'' Melloy; 6 June 1936 – 30 August 2019) was an Australian politician. The

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 la ...

member for Lilley from 1980 to 1993, she was the first woman from Queensland to be elected to the

House of Representatives House of Representatives is the name of legislative bodies in many countries and sub-national entitles. In many countries, the House of Representatives is the lower house of a bicameral legislature, with the corresponding upper house often c ...

Early life

Born in

Brisbane Brisbane ( ) is the capital and most populous city of the states and territories of Australia, Australian state of Queensland, and the list of cities in Australia by population, third-most populous city in Australia and Oceania, with a populati ...

, she attended the

University of Queensland , mottoeng = By means of knowledge and hard work , established = , endowment = A$224.3 million , budget = A$2.1 billion , type = Public research university , chancellor = Peter Varghese , vice_chancellor = Deborah Terry , city = B ...

before becoming a teacher, eventually rising to be an assistant to the director of the Brisbane Kindergarten Training College.

Politics

In 1980, she was elected to the

Australian House of Representatives The House of Representatives is the lower house of the bicameral Parliament of Australia, the upper house being the Senate. Its composition and powers are established in Chapter I of the Constitution of Australia. The term of members of the ...

as the Labor Party member for Lilley, defeating the sitting

Liberal Party The Liberal Party is any of many political parties around the world. The meaning of ''liberal'' varies around the world, ranging from liberal conservatism on the right to social liberalism on the left. __TOC__ Active liberal parties This is a li ...

MP Kevin Cairns. She was the fifth woman elected to the House of Representatives, and the second female Labor member of that house (the first was Joan Child). She held Lilley until her retirement in 1993. From 2000 to 2004, she was a council member of the

City of Caloundra The City of Caloundra was a local government area about north of Brisbane in the Sunshine Coast region of South East Queensland, Australia. The shire covered an area of ; it existed as a local government entity from 1912 until 2008, when it am ...

Family political connections

Her father, Jack Melloy, was a long serving member of the

Australian Labor Party The Australian Labor Party (ALP), also simply known as Labor, is the major centre-left political party in Australia, one of two major parties in Australian politics, along with the centre-right Liberal Party of Australia. The party forms the f ...

and member of the

Legislative Assembly of Queensland The Legislative Assembly of Queensland is the sole chamber of the unicameral Parliament of Queensland established under the Constitution of Queensland. Elections are held every four years and are done by full preferential voting. The Assembl ...

. Her daughter,

Vicky Darling Vicky Elizabeth Darling (born 29 November 1966 in Brisbane, Australia) is a Labor politician elected to the Queensland Legislative Assembly in September 2006 as the member for Sandgate. Darling was preselected by the Labor Party in 2006 She r ...

, was a member of the

from 2006 to 2012.

References

1936 births 2019 deaths Australian Labor Party members of the Parliament of Australia Members of the Australian House of Representatives for Lilley Members of the Australian House of Representatives Women members of the Australian House of Representatives Queensland local councillors 20th-century Australian politicians Women local councillors in Australia 20th-century Australian women politicians {{Australia-Labor-representative-stub