Brad Battin set to be challenged by Jess Wilson
If Jess Wilson successfully challenges Brad Battin for the leadership of the Victorian Liberal Party, she will become the first woman to lead the party since the state chapter was formed 71 years ago.
Her victory would also pave the way for a contest to secure Victoria’s first elected female premier at the next election. Jacinta Allan and Joan Kirner were freshman midterms.
Shadow treasurer Jess Wilson, who is challenging the Victorian Liberal Party leadership.Credit: Christopher Hopkins
Kirner was the province’s premier from 1990 to 1992. Not only was she Victoria’s first female premier, she was also the first Labor premier to come from the Socialist Left faction, and before that clearly from a community politics background, with relatively little training or apprenticeship in party or union politics.
Kirner forced the male-dominated ALP to recognize that participation in community politics as mothers was a legitimate form of political activism and tantamount to other forms of political apprenticeship.
He became prime minister on 9 August 1990, following the resignation of John Cain. The day after the election, Age‘s Shaun Carney wrote: “Let’s deal with the shock of this… Joan Kirner. A woman. A member of the Socialist Left. Prime Minister. In Victoria! This is real. It happened.”
Former Victorian prime minister Joan Kirner in 1992.Credit: William West
Kirner died in 2015 at the age of 76 after his battle with esophageal cancer.
If Wilson is elected leader of Victoria in the state election in November next year, he would be Victoria’s youngest ever premier.
