Shannon Fentiman

Shannon Maree Fentiman is an Australian politician. She has been the Labor member for Waterford in the Queensland Legislative Assembly since 2015. Fentiman has previously served as the Minister for Women and Minister for Health, Mental Health and Ambulance Services.

Born in 1983/84, she holds a Bachelor of Laws (First class honours) from Queensland University of Technology and Master of Laws from the University of Melbourne. She attended Marymount College, Gold Coast.

Prior to her election to the Queensland Parliament, Fentiman worked as a solicitor for Hall Payne Lawyers. She has previously worked as an industrial advocate for the Australian Manufacturing Workers Union and as a judge's associate in the Supreme Court of Queensland to Justice Atkinson.

Fentiman has also been a board member of the Logan Women's Health and Wellbeing Centre, Secretary of the Centre Against Sexual Violence in Logan and the Duty Solicitor at the Beenleigh Neighbourhood Centre.

Fentiman stood for Waterford in 2015 after the previous Labor Member Evan Moorhead lost the seat in the 2012 LNP landslide. Waterford was Campbell Newman Government's third most marginal seat held seat by Mike Latter. Fentiman achieved a 14.3% swing towards her, making Waterford once more a safe Labor seat. Fentiman became a first term minister and was sworn in as Minister for Communities, Women and Youth, Minister for Child Safety and Minister for Multicultural Affairs in the Palaszczuk Ministry on 16 February 2015.

After the Palaszczuk Government was re-elected on 25 November 2017, Fentiman was elevated to be the Minister for Employment and Small Business and Minister for Training and Skills Development. She is also the Ministerial Champion for the Torres Strait.

Fentiman was seen as a candidate for the 2023 Queensland Labor Party leadership election however she did not run.

In September 2016, the State Opposition called for Fentiman's sacking as a Minister following a number of deaths of children in foster care or within the child safety system. Two months later, an independent review found misconduct and catastrophic failures by her department in relation to the deaths of seven children. In response, Fentiman said she still had confidence in her department's executive staff. Some two weeks later, it was revealed that three child protection staff had been stood down, and a further nine were subject to disciplinary proceedings following the death of 21 month old Mason Jet Lee in June 2016. The child died with injuries from head to toe after being released from hospital just three months earlier.