Fiona Heather Patten (born May 1964) is a former Australian politician. She is the leader of the Reason Party and was a member of the

Victorian Legislative Council The Victorian Legislative Council (VLC) is the upper house of the bicameral Parliament of Victoria, Australia, the lower house being the Legislative Assembly. Both houses sit at Parliament House in Spring Street, Melbourne. The Legislative C ...

between 2014 and 2022, representing the

Northern Metropolitan Region Northern Metropolitan Region is one of the eight electoral regions of Victoria, Australia, which elects five members to the Victorian Legislative Council (also referred to as the upper house) by proportional representation. The region was create ...

until she lost her seat at the 2022 state election. Patten established the

Australian Sex Party The Australian Sex Party was an Australian political party founded in 2009 in response to concerns over the purported increasing influence of religion in Australian politics. The party was born out of an adult-industry lobby group, the Eros Asso ...

in 2009 to focus on personal freedoms after deep frustration with stagnation on censorship, freedom,

Marriage Equality Same-sex marriage, also known as gay marriage, is the marriage of two people of the same sex or gender. marriage between same-sex couples is legally performed and recognized in 33 countries, with the most recent being Mexico, constituting ...

and

drug law reform Drug liberalization is a drug policy process of decriminalizing or legalizing the use or sale of prohibited drugs. Variations of drug liberalization include: drug legalization, drug re-legalization and drug decriminalization. Proponents of drug ...

. On 22 August 2017, it was announced that the Australian Sex Party would be changing its name to the Reason Party. Before entering politics, Patten was the CEO of Australia's national adult industry association, Eros Association. She championed sexual rights and health movements for more than 20 years, particularly on HIV/AIDS, after initially starting out as a small businesses owner with her own fashion label. During her time as a Victorian MP, Patten has been credited for playing pivotal roles in achieving social reforms in Victoria, with examples including the passage of Victoria's assisted dying legislation, the trial of a medically supervised drug injecting room in Richmond, relaxing laws for ride-share companies such as Uber and establishing buffer zones for abortion clinics to keep protesters away from patients and staff. According to ''The Age'', between November 2018 and November 2021, Patten voted with the Andrews Government's position 74.3% of the time, the second-most of any Legislative Council crossbencher, behind only

Andy Meddick Andy Meddick (born 5 April 1964) is an Australian ex-politician. He was Animal Justice Party member of the Victorian Legislative Council since 2018 until 2022, representing Western Victoria Region, and is the first politician elected in Victoria ...

Early life and career

Patten was born in Canberra, Australian Capital Territory, the daughter of Colin Richard Lloyd "Rick" Patten, an Australian naval officer, and his wife Anne, a Scottish-born public servant who worked for a government-owned telecommunications company. Rick and Anne Patten had met in

Scotland Scotland (, ) is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. Covering the northern third of the island of Great Britain, mainland Scotland has a Anglo-Scottish border, border with England to the southeast ...

, where the former had been posted, and after her birth Patten spent parts of her childhood in the United Kingdom and the United States, in concert with her father's postings. Patten has two younger sisters. Patten received her primary education overseas. She excelled in sport and took particular interest in swimming. Upon returning to Australia with her family in 1978, Patten attended

Hawker College Hawker College is a senior secondary college in the Australian Capital Territory. It caters to students completing their final two years of secondary education, and offers a wide range of curriculum choices. Established in 1976, Hawker has a non ...

in Canberra where she studied Mathematics, Physics, Chemistry, Industrial Arts, Technical Drawing, Landscape Design and Environmental Studies. She went on to study Landscape Architecture and Industrial Design at the

University of Canberra The University of Canberra (UC) is a public research university with its main campus located in Bruce, Canberra, Australian Capital Territory. The campus is within walking distance of Westfield Belconnen, and from Canberra's Civic Centre. U ...

. She later graduated with qualifications in fashion design and started her own fashion label, ''Body Politics''. The first boutique was opened in Yarralumla in the late 1980s, where she sold her own fashion creations as well as the designs of colleagues in Sydney. During the

early 1990s recession in Australia The early 1990s recession saw a period of economic downturn affect much of the world in the late 1980s and early 1990s. The economy of Australia suffered its worst recession since the Great Depression. Background In October 1987, the internat ...

, interest in Patten's expensive collection was received largely from workers in the

sex industry The sex industry (also called the sex trade) consists of businesses that either directly or indirectly provide sex-related products and services or adult entertainment. The industry includes activities involving direct provision of sex-related ...

Business career, 1988–2014

Body Politics

Patten started her career with her company ''Body Politics''. With her large clientele of sex workers, Patten became interested in

sex workers' rights Sex workers' rights encompass a variety of aims being pursued globally by individuals and organizations that specifically involve the human, health, and labor rights of sex workers and their clients. The goals of these movements are diverse, but ...

, eventually joining ''Workers in Sex Employment'' (WISE), a lobbying group, to inform at-risk members of the population about the emerging threat of HIV/AIDS. Patten was employed as an outreach speaker, and would once a week visit brothels to teach the women about safe sex. From 1990 to 1992, Patten was a sex worker herself. Her initial encounter began at ''Tiffany's Palace'' in Canberra, where she had intercourse with a client when another worker was unavailable. Patten eventually lost interest in her work, which had also interfered with her social and professional life. After working as a female escort in

Cairns, Queensland Cairns (, ) is a city in Queensland, Australia, on the tropical north east coast of Far North Queensland. The population in June 2019 was 153,952, having grown on average 1.02% annually over the preceding five years. The city is the 5th-most-p ...

, Patten quit sex work in 1992 and continued in

sex education Sex education, also known as sexual education, sexuality education or sex ed, is the instruction of issues relating to human sexuality, including emotional relations and responsibilities, human sexual anatomy, sexual activity, sexual reproduc ...

Eros Association

In 1992, Patten and her partner, Robbie Swan, established the Eros Association, a

peak body A peak organisation or peak body is an Australian term for an advocacy group or trade association, an association of industries or groups with allied interests. They are generally established for the purposes of developing Standardization, standar ...

for the adult industry. The company extended its interests into publications, public relations, business, and political advocacy. Eros was heavily involved in the editing and publication of a political humour and satire magazine entitled ''Matilda'', an

adult magazine Pornographic magazines or erotic magazines, sometimes known as adult, sex or top-shelf magazines, are magazines that contain content of an explicitly sexual nature. Publications of this kind may contain images of attractive naked subjects, as is ...

entitled ''Ecstacy'', and launched their own "sex and politics" themed magazine ''Eros''. The Eros Association was instrumental in support for the Brindabella Wilderness Project, an initiative to preserve wildlife in the

Brindabella Valley The Brindabella Valley is a valley situated below the western ridge-line of the Brindabella Range, located midway along the Goodradigbee River, in the south of New South Wales, Australia. Location and features The valley is framed by the Brin ...

and Mountains. In 2001, the company established the first National Museum of Erotica, dedicated to the history of

erotica Erotica is literature or art that deals substantively with subject matter that is erotic, sexually stimulating or sexually arousing. Some critics regard pornography as a type of erotica, but many consider it to be different. Erotic art may use ...

and the preservation of

erotic art Erotic art is a broad field of the visual arts that includes any artistic work intended to evoke erotic arousal. It usually depicts human nudity or sexual activity, and has included works in various visual mediums, including drawings, engr ...

literature Literature is any collection of written work, but it is also used more narrowly for writings specifically considered to be an art form, especially prose fiction, drama, and poetry. In recent centuries, the definition has expanded to include ...

, film and

photography Photography is the art, application, and practice of creating durable images by recording light, either electronically by means of an image sensor, or chemically by means of a light-sensitive material such as photographic film. It is employe ...

. The museum was unveiled by Chief Minister

Kate Carnell Anne Katherine Carnell (née Knowlman; born 30 May 1955) is an Australian businesswoman and former Liberal Party politician, who served as the third Chief Minister of the Australian Capital Territory (ACT) from 1995 to 2000. Early life and p ...

. While the physical presence of the museum was closed in 2002, the collection remained preserved and continued to grow, with over 400 individual pieces cataloged by 2005, and instead maintained a virtual presence on the internet. Patten scaled down her interests in the company in 2000 to pursue other interests in advocacy. She returned in 2006, and left again in 2014 when she was elected to the

Victorian Parliament The Parliament of Victoria is the bicameral legislature of the Australian state of Victoria that follows a Westminster-derived parliamentary system. It consists of the King, represented by the Governor of Victoria, the Legislative Assembly and ...

National Museum of Erotica

The National Museum of Erotica was opened in Canberra in 2001, dedicated to the history of

and the preservation of

, film and

. The museum was unveiled by Chief Minister

, and was the first establishment of its kind in Australia. The National Museum of Erotica collected works from the likes of

Brett Whiteley Brett Whiteley AO (7 April 1939 – 15 June 1992) was an Australian artist. He is represented in the collections of all the large Australian galleries, and was twice winner of the Archibald, Wynne and Sulman prizes. He held many exhibitio ...

, Charles Blackman, Salvatore Zofrea, Lesbia Thorpe,

Richard Larter Richard Larter (19 May 1929 – 25 July 2014) was an Australian painter, often identified as one of Australia's few highly recognisable pop artists. Larter also frequently painted in a Pointillist style. He took advantage of unusual techniques ...

Mario Azzopardi Mario Philip Azzopardi (born 19 November 1950) is a Canadian-Maltese television and film director and writer. Early life and emigration Azzopardi was born in Siggiewi, Malta, and was educated at St Aloysius' College ( Birkirkara, Malta), and the ...

, and more historically

Mihály Zichy Mihály Zichy (; german: Michael von Zichy; 15 October 1827 – 28 February 1906) was a Hungarian painter and graphic artist. He is considered a notable representative of Hungarian romantic painting. He lived and worked primarily in St. Peter ...

. Patten expressed that the collection and archiving of erotic, pornographic and sexual art and artefacts is fundamentally different from the collection of non-sexual material because the former was perceived as a rapidly diminishing resource in the world. The museum housed erotic artistic works, including paintings,

pictures An image is a visual representation of something. It can be two-dimensional, three-dimensional, or somehow otherwise feed into the visual system to convey information. An image can be an artifact, such as a photograph or other two-dimensiona ...

pin-up A pin-up model (known as a pin-up girl for a female and less commonly male pin-up for a male) is a model whose mass-produced pictures see widespread appeal as part of popular culture. Pin-up models were variously glamour models, fashion models ...

, illustrated books, comic strips and films, from the United States, the United Kingdom, Japan,

Hungary Hungary ( hu, Magyarország ) is a landlocked country in Central Europe. Spanning of the Pannonian Basin, Carpathian Basin, it is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine to the northeast, Romania to the east and southeast, Serbia to the ...

, Russia and Australia. The museum also displayed a collection of

sex toy A sex toy is an object or device that is primarily used to facilitate human sexual pleasure, such as a dildo, artificial vagina or vibrator. Many popular sex toys are designed to resemble human genitals, and may be vibrating or non-vibratin ...

s, including

dildo A dildo is a sex toy, often explicitly phallic in appearance, intended for sexual penetration or other sexual activity during masturbation or with sex partners. Dildos can be made from a number of materials and shaped like an erect human p ...

s, vibrators and other mechanical devices dating back to the late 1800s. The museum was closed in 2002, but the collection remained preserved and continued to grow, with over 400 individual pieces cataloged by 2005. The museum now maintains an internet archive.

Political career 1992–present

Patten first sought election in the 1992 ACT general election. Patten contested the second election for representation in the multi-member single constituency Australian Capital Territory Legislative Assembly on a ticket called the Hare-Clark Independent Group, in association with the larger group of independent politicians who entered an alliance with the

Liberal Liberal or liberalism may refer to: Politics * a supporter of liberalism ** Liberalism by country * an adherent of a Liberal Party * Liberalism (international relations) * Sexually liberal feminism * Social liberalism Arts, entertainment and m ...

and Residents Rally government. Patten ran alongside the sitting member

Craig Duby Craig John Duby (born 20 February 1949), former Australian politician, was a member of the unicameral Australian Capital Territory Legislative Assembly, Legislative Assembly of the Australian Capital Territory between 1989 and 1992, elected to ...

, however both Duby and Patten were unsuccessful in being elected.

Australian Sex Party (2009–2017)

In 2009, Patten founded the

, which began by focusing on law reform for the sex industry, but soon "broadened tsplatform to include supporting voluntary euthanasia, same-sex marriage, decriminalising cannabis for personal use, greater transparency in government through freedom of information laws, and increasing people’s right to privacy." Patten contested the seat of Higgins in

Victoria Victoria most commonly refers to: * Victoria (Australia), a state of the Commonwealth of Australia * Victoria, British Columbia, provincial capital of British Columbia, Canada * Victoria (mythology), Roman goddess of Victory * Victoria, Seychelle ...

at the

2009 by-election 9 (nine) is the natural number following and preceding . Evolution of the Arabic digit In the beginning, various Indians wrote a digit 9 similar in shape to the modern closing question mark without the bottom dot. The Kshatrapa, Andhra and ...

. She received over 3 percent of the vote, placing her 4th out of 10 candidates. Her campaign was based on opposing Greens Victoria candidate

Clive Hamilton Clive Charles Hamilton AM FRSA (born 12 March 1953) is an Australian public intellectual and Professor of Public Ethics at the Centre for Applied Philosophy and Public Ethics (CAPPE) and the Vice-Chancellor's Chair in Public Ethics at Charles ...

's proposal for an ISP-level Internet filter which would block access to websites containing RC-rated content—that is, legal material which is banned from sale, trade or public exhibition due to its extreme nature. Patten publicly criticized the proposal. She appeared in the '' Four Corners'' episode "Access Denied" arguing that it would include blocking access to adult films such as '' Pirates''—refused classification because of a technicality—that do not depict sexual violence, are extremely popular overseas and are available for download on dozens of websites. The party contested all states and territories, except for Tasmania and the Australian Capital Territory, in the Senate and six of 150

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 ...

seats at the 2010 federal election. The party won 2.04 percent of the national Senate vote, over 250,000 first preferences. After the major parties and the Greens, the Sex Party during the vote count were "neck and neck" with the

Family First Party The Family First Party was a conservative political party in Australia which existed from 2002 to 2017. It was founded in South Australia where it enjoyed its greatest electoral support. Since the demise of the Australian Conservatives into wh ...

for the fourth place in the national Senate vote. The party "outpolled several more prominent minor parties and came within about 10,000 votes of Family First for the Senate in Victoria". After the party's first federal election contest, Patten claimed that the Sex Party was "now the major minor party in Australian politics":

We've polled better than the Greens did in their first federal election and believe that our vision of Australia as the most socially progressive country in the world is equal to the Greens environmental messages of 20 years ago.

While the Sex Party did not win any seats, their preferences were substantially beneficial to the Greens who won a Senate seat in every state for the first time. Patten contested the

in the

at the

2010 Victorian state election The 2010 Victorian state election, held on Saturday, 27 November 2010, was for the 57th Parliament of Victoria. The election was to elect all 88 members of the Legislative Assembly and all 40 members of the Legislative Council. The incumbent c ...

. Patten contested the 2012 Melbourne state by-election, coming third out of 16 candidates, receiving 6.6 percent of the vote, in the absence of a

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 ...

candidate. She says the party preferenced Labor ahead of the Greens due to the "anti-sex feminist movement" within the Greens, but that future preferences may change again. Patten was again a Sex Party candidate for a senate seat in Victoria at the 2013 federal election. Patten successfully contested the

in the

during the

2014 Victorian state election The 2014 Victorian state election, held on Saturday, 29 November 2014, was for the 58th Parliament of Victoria. All 88 seats in the Victorian Legislative Assembly and 40 seats in the Victorian Legislative Council were up for election. The incumb ...

becoming the first candidate for the Australian Sex Party to be elected to parliament.

Reason Party (2017–present)

On 22 August 2017, there were reports that the Australian Sex Party would be changing its name and becoming the Reason Party. This was later confirmed, and the Reason Party registered for federal elections in Australia in May 2018, and was confirmed as "Reason Australia" on 30 August 2018. In February 2022, the state of Victoria decriminalised sex work. The bill passed to repeal offences and criminal penalties for consensual sex work between adults. "The Sex Work Decriminalisation Act 2021 will partially abolish street-based sex work offences and associated public health offences, remove the licensing system and move to regulate the industry through existing agencies." Patten has been referenced as having led Victoria's review into decriminalising the industry and been fighting for reforms for 40 years. In February 2022, Patten introduced a bill to the Victorian upper house to decriminalise all drugs. Under the proposal police would issue a compulsory notice and referral of drug education or treatment to people found to have used or possessed an illicit drug. Those who comply with the notice will not be found guilty or receive a criminal record. "Patrick Lawrence, chief executive of addiction, mental health and legal services hub First Step, said the bill would ensure those struggling with addiction, who were often targeted by Victoria's drug laws, received help rather than condemnation." On 20 September 2022, she revealed that she has cancer. At the

2022 Victorian state election The 2022 Victorian state election was held on Saturday, 26 November 2022 to elect the 60th Parliament of Victoria. All 88 seats in the Legislative Assembly (lower house) and all 40 seats in the Legislative Council (upper house) were up for el ...

, Patten was unsuccessful in her re-election to the

Book

Patten's book ''Sex, Drugs and the Electoral Roll'' was published in 2018. It took her two years to write.

Bibliography

*''Sex, Drugs and the Electoral Roll: My unlikely journey from sex worker to Member of Parliament'' (Crows Nest: Allen & Unwin, , published in 2018)

Awards

Patten was awarded the 2020 for her achievements in leading debate and securing legislation on many issues of concern to

humanists Humanism is a philosophical stance that emphasizes the individual and social potential and agency of human beings. It considers human beings the starting point for serious moral and philosophical inquiry. The meaning of the term "humani ...

, particularly end of life, abortion safety, sexual health and drugs of addiction.

References

External links

Fiona Patten MLC – Homepage

Reason Party
official party website
Reason Party – Victoria
secondary official party website with more focus on

Sex Party vs Family First debate: Sunrise 2 August 2010
* *

{{DEFAULTSORT:Patten, Fiona 1964 births Living people 21st-century Australian politicians 21st-century Australian women writers 21st-century Australian writers Australian Sex Party politicians Australian businesspeople Australian humanists Australian people of Scottish descent Australian drug policy reform activists Members of the Victorian Legislative Council People from Canberra Reason Party (Australia) politicians Sex worker activists in Australia University of Canberra alumni Women members of the Victorian Legislative Council 21st-century Australian women politicians