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Maurene Horder

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Maurene Horder

Maurene Horder (born 1950) is an Australian former politician. She is notable for having been the first woman to be the parliamentary leader of the Australian Labor Party in any state or territory of Australia, and also for having been the first parliamentarian in the Australian Capital Territory to give birth whilst a member. Since leaving politics in 1985, she has been a senior executive.

Horder was born in Sydney in 1950, to Mervyn Horder and his wife Mary (née Brown). She moved to Canberra in 1972.

Before entering politics, Horder was a teacher, and then a public servant with the Department of Education.

Horder was elected to the ACT House of Assembly in 1979, for the Division of Canberra.

Peter Vallee was Labor leader from 1977 to 1982. He resigned, in order to allow a woman to lead Labor into the 1982 election. Robyn Walmsley was then the acting leader, but, as it turned out, a woman was not elected leader. The new leader was Ken Doyle, but he resigned after a year, in 1983, and Horder was elected leader in his place. Horder thereby became the first woman to lead a parliamentary Labor Party in any of the Australian states or territories, albeit in a parliament that only had an advisory role.

Horder was Junior Vice-president of the ACT Branch of the ALP in 1978 and President in 1982.

Horder resigned as both leader of the Labor Party and as a member of the House of Assembly in 1985. She was replaced as a MHA by Kevin Gill and as Labor leader by Paul Whalan.

In 1984 she unsuccessfully sought Labor pre-selection for the Federal Division of Fowler, losing out to Ted Grace.

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