Biography
I have lived in South Australia all my life. I attended Stirling East Primary School and then Marryatville High School. My schooling provided a solid education in both humanities and science. I would like to acknowledge the significant role my teachers played in helping me gain skills and achieve goals.
At university I studied physiotherapy and went on to work at the Repatriation General Hospital, Daw Park. As I became more involved in the Liberal Party’s youth wing, the Young Liberals, politics was becoming a hobby of increasing interest. When a position became available working for Federal MP Christopher Pyne I made a quantum leap from physio into full time politics. I later took an adviser’s job with Robert Lawson, the then State Minister for the Ageing and Disability Services, where I could apply my experience in health. After the Liberal Party lost the 2002 State election I became Executive Officer with the Australian Nursing Homes and Extended Care Association (ANHECA SA), an organisation that represents aged care providers.
On announcing her retirement from the Legislative Council, Diana Laidlaw made it clear that she wished to be replaced by someone who was like her when she entered Parliament – a young woman. I was selected from a field of all female candidates by the Liberal Party and was sworn in on 26 June 2003.
Since then she has held the portfolios of corrections, mental health and substance abuse, gambling, consumer affairs and early childhood development.
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