Jacqueline Marie Kelly (born 18 February 1964) is a former Australian politician who served as a
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 ...
member of 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 o ...
from March 1996 until November 2007, representing the
Division of Lindsay
The Division of Lindsay is an Australian electoral division in the state of New South Wales.
Ever since Lindsay was first contested at the 1984 federal election the seat had always elected a member of the government of the day − a pattern ...
, New South Wales.
Early career
Kelly was born in
Upper Hutt
Upper Hutt ( mi, Te Awa Kairangi ki Uta) is a city in the Wellington Region of New Zealand and one of the four cities that constitute the Wellington metropolitan area.
Geography
The Upper Hutt city centre lies approximately 26 km north-e ...
,
New Zealand
New Zealand ( mi, Aotearoa ) is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and over 700 smaller islands. It is the sixth-largest island count ...
, and attended the
Monte Sant' Angelo Mercy College
, motto_translation = Religion, Knowledge, Culture
, established =
, type = Independent single-sex secondary day school
, educational_authority = New South Wales Department of Education
, gender = Girls
, denomination = Roman Catholicism ...
, in North Sydney. She obtained a law degree from 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 ...
, where she also attained a '
full blue' for rowing, and later represented Australia in the sport.
In 1987, she commenced work with the Corrective Services Department of Queensland and worked as a probation and parole officer. In May 1989, she was admitted to practice as a barrister of the Supreme Court of Queensland. From 1989 to 1996, she was a legal officer (Squadron Leader) with the
Royal Australian Air Force
"Through Adversity to the Stars"
, colours =
, colours_label =
, march =
, mascot =
, anniversaries = RAAF Anniversary Commemoration ...
(RAAF), and in June 1995, she was awarded the Helsham prize for her services to the RAAF Legal Department.
Political career
Federal politics
At the
March 1996 federal election, Kelly was elected to the Australian parliament for the seat of
Lindsay, based around the suburb of Penrith, on the western fringe of Sydney. However, her election was invalidated on 11 September because her employment by the RAAF contravened Section 44 (iv) of the Australian Constitution, which disqualifies from election those who hold an office of profit under the Crown. As well, she still held New Zealand citizenship, in contravention of Section 44 (i).
After resigning from the RAAF and renouncing her New Zealand citizenship, she was re-elected at the
1996 Lindsay by-election
The 1996 Lindsay by-election was held in the Australian electorate of Lindsay in New South Wales on 19 October 1996. The by-election was triggered by a ruling of the Court of Disputed Returns that the election of the Liberal Party candidate Jacki ...
with an increased majority.
At the
1998 federal election, which was largely a referendum on the proposal by
Liberal-National Coalition government for a
goods and services tax, she was re-elected with a slim majority, but she increased her majority at the
2001 federal election and maintained that margin at the
2004 election.
Kelly was the Minister for Sport and Tourism from October 1998 to November 2001, the Minister Assisting the Prime Minister for the Sydney 2000 Games from October 1998 to January 2001, and Parliamentary Secretary to the Prime Minister from November 2001 to October 2004.
In 1999, Kelly hosted the International Drugs in Sport Summit, which dealt with the doping problem ahead of the
2000 Sydney Olympics
The 2000 Summer Olympics, officially the Games of the XXVII Olympiad and also known as Sydney 2000 (Dharug: ''Gadigal 2000''), the Millennium Olympic Games or the Games of the New Millennium, was an international multi-sport event held from ...
. Although the first sitting Australian federal parliamentarian to give birth to a child was
Ros Kelly
Roslyn Joan Kelly AO (née Raw; born 25 January 1948) is a former member of the Australian House of Representatives, having represented the Division of Canberra from 18 October 1980 to 30 January 1995. She was a minister in the governments ...
in 1983, in 2000 Kelly became the first serving Australian federal minister to give birth to a child (a daughter named Dominique).
In 2001, Kelly was attacked by the
Transport Workers Union for describing the collapse of
Ansett Airlines as being "about getting over a little blip and getting back into the very, very bright future that is ahead for tourism". When she was the Minister Assisting the Prime Minister (for the Office of the Status of Women), Kelly was instrumental in the development and implementation of the 'Baby Bonus' scheme, introduced in 2002.
In 2006, she was paired with Pavel Aubrecht when she competed on ''
Torvill and Dean's Dancing on Ice
''Torvill and Dean's Dancing on Ice'' was an Australian reality television series which was based on the original British version, '' Dancing on Ice''. The series premiered on the Nine Network on Tuesday, 11 July 2006 at , and involved celebri ...
'' and was eliminated third.
In May 2007, Kelly announced her intention to retire from federal politics at the
election to be held later that year.
Pamphlet scandal
On 21 November 2007, three days before the federal election, an anonymous member of the Liberal Party contacted the assistant secretary 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 t ...
(ALP),
Luke Foley
Luke Aquinas Foley (born 27 July 1970) is a former Australian Labor Party politician who served as the Leader of the Opposition in the Parliament of New South Wales from 2015 to 2018. Foley was a member of the New South Wales Legislative Counci ...
, with information that Liberal Party members would be distributing a flyer to letterboxes throughout the suburb of
St Marys, linking the ALP with a fictional Islamic organisation. (Due to a redistribution of electoral boundaries, St Marys had been moved from the safe Labor seat of
Chifley into Kelly's seat of Lindsay.) Kelly's husband, Gary Clark, and four other people, were caught when they were about to letter-box the pamphlets, which thanked the ALP for supporting Muslim terrorists. Two Liberal Party members (including Jeff Egan, and the husband of the Liberal candidate for Lindsay Greg Chijoff) were forced to resign from the party.
Having already retired, Kelly categorically denied any knowledge of the pamphlets prior to their distribution. When confronted by media at her children's school drop-off the following morning, she stated: "My view is that it is a bit of a Chaser-style prank", referring to the time the satirical TV program, ''
The Chaser
The Chaser are an Australian satirical comedy group, best known for their television programmes and satirical news masthead. The group take their name from their satirical newspaper, a publication known to challenge conventions of taste. Th ...
'', had done a stunt in
Mosman
Mosman is a suburb on the Lower North Shore region of Sydney, in the state of New South Wales, Australia. Mosman is located 8 kilometres north-east of the Sydney central business district and is the administrative centre for the local governm ...
that involved claiming a mosque was to be built in the neighbourhood, and asking for comments from people on the street.
State politics
In February 2014, Kelly unsuccessfully contested the Liberal pre-selection for the seat of
Penrith in the
NSW parliament
The Parliament of New South Wales is a Bicameralism, bicameral legislature in the Australian States and territories of Australia, state of New South Wales (NSW), consisting of the New South Wales Legislative Assembly (lower house) and the New S ...
, held by Liberal
Stuart Ayres. In October 2014, she resigned her Liberal Party membership, stating: "There's no local voice in the Liberal Party, there's no reason to be a member because the lobbyists are running the party", and also blaming the performance of the party's State Executive.
Kelly then contested Penrith at the
2015 New South Wales state election
A general election for the 56th Parliament of New South Wales (NSW) was held on Saturday 28 March 2015. Members were elected to all 93 seats in the Legislative Assembly using optional preferential voting. Members were also elected to 21 of ...
as an
independent
Independent or Independents may refer to:
Arts, entertainment, and media Artist groups
* Independents (artist group), a group of modernist painters based in the New Hope, Pennsylvania, area of the United States during the early 1930s
* Independ ...
but was unsuccessful against Liberal incumbent Ayres. She did, however, direct preferences to the ALP's candidate
Emma Husar. That contributed to a significant swing away from Ayres on a
two-party preferred
In Australian politics, the two-party-preferred vote (TPP or 2PP) is the result of an election or opinion poll after preferences have been distributed to the highest two candidates, who in some cases can be independents. For the purposes of TPP, ...
basis. Husar later won Kelly's old federal seat of Lindsay in 2016 and held it for one term.
Other
Sporting achievements
Kelly was part of Australia's elite rowing program. She was in line for selection for the Australian rowing team to the
Seoul Olympics
The 1988 Summer Olympics (), officially known as the Games of the XXIV Olympiad () and commonly known as Seoul 1988 ( ko, 서울 1988, Seoul Cheon gubaek palsip-pal), was an international multi-sport event held from 17 September to 2 October ...
in 1988, but Rowing Australia opted not to send a women's team. In 1986, Kelly represented Australia in the under 23s rowing, in scull and double scull, as well as the Nationals. She competed in the 1994 World Masters rowing in Brisbane, winning 2 gold, 1 silver and 2 bronze medals, the 1997 Australian Masters Rowing Championships in Canberra, winning 1 gold and 1 bronze, and the 1997 World Masters Rowing Championships in Adelaide, winning 2 gold.
Personal life
Kelly married Gary Clark, a local orthodontist, on 5 December 1998. They have two children, Dominique and Lachlan.
References
External links
Personal website (archived)
{{DEFAULTSORT:Kelly, Jackie
1964 births
Living people
People from Upper Hutt
Liberal Party of Australia members of the Parliament of Australia
Members of the Australian House of Representatives
Members of the Australian House of Representatives for Lindsay
Royal Australian Air Force officers
New Zealand emigrants to Australia
Women in the Australian military
Women members of the Australian House of Representatives
Women government ministers of Australia
21st-century Australian politicians
21st-century Australian women politicians
20th-century Australian politicians
Government ministers of Australia
People educated at Monte Sant'Angelo Mercy College
20th-century Australian women politicians