Leisha Harvey
Encyclopedia
Leisha Teresa Harvey is an Australian politician
. She was a National Party of Australia
member of the Queensland Legislative Assembly
from 1983 to 1989, representing the electorate of Greenslopes
. She served as Minister for Health
in the Ahern government from 1987 until her sacking in January 1989. She lost her seat at the election that December, and was not long out of parliament when she was charged with numerous counts of misappropriation of public funds concerning her usage of her official credit card. After a high-profile trial in 1990 and subsequent conviction, she spent five months in prison and a further seven months in home detention.
parents in Münsingen
, West Germany
. The family immigrated to Queensland
when she was three, and she was raised in Brisbane
thereafter, attending St Mary Immaculate Convent, Annerley, Buranda State School, St Ursula's College and Coorparoo High School. She studied education at Griffith University
and was a teacher in the special skills program at Springwood High School
for most of her career. A devout Roman Catholic
, Harvey attended the evangelical Garden City Christian Church in Brisbane's southern suburbs. Harvey married in 1965 and had one son and one daughter, but divorced in 1975. She remarried in 1983.
Harvey contested and won National Party
preselection for the seat of Greenslopes
at the 1983 election. At the time, the seat was considered safe for the Liberal Party of Australia
, the National Party's former junior coalition partner. However, in the wake of the breakdown of the coalition in the early 1980s, the National Party poured resources into Liberal-held seats in an attempt to destroy their former partners. On election day, Harvey achieved a large swing, easily defeating incumbent Liberal and former minister Bill Hewitt
and taking Greenslopes for the National Party for the first time in its history.
As a backbencher, Harvey's speeches reflected her strong support of small business (having spent a period in small business herself), the rights of the aged and the need for consumer protection. She was staunchly opposed to sex discrimination, but equally opposed to affirmative action. An ardent opponent of homosexuality, she often stated that homosexuality would "never be legalised in Queensland." She faced a minor scandal before the 1986 election concerning use of her electorate printing allowances to aid her re-election, but was easily re-elected, and for a time was seen as something of a rising star in the party.
, Premier of Queensland for nearly twenty years, resigned, and was succeeded by the more moderate Mike Ahern. Ahern immediately instituted a ministerial reshuffle, removing the heavily criticized Yvonne Chapman
, the state's first female Cabinet minister, but promoting Harvey to the high-profile position of Minister for Health. Harvey thus became the only woman in the Ahern Cabinet and the second woman in Queensland history to serve as a Cabinet minister.
Harvey's time as Health Minister, however, was plagued with difficulties from the beginning. She was forced to deal with a major health crisis which had sparked threats by hospital doctors to resign en masse, the Ward 10B scandal surrounding abuse of psychiatric patients at Townsville Hospital
, and recurrent issues over the storage of toxic medical waste. She also came under attack for appointing her daughter and sister-in-law to her paid staff, as well as a woman previously convicted on fraud charges, and using government funds to pay her hairdressing bills, leading the opposition to dub her "Minister for Goldilocks". She had a difficult relationship with many in the medical profession; David Lindsay, former head of medicine at the Gold Coast Hospital
, recounted in 2005 that Harvey "treated us like schoolchildren" and "told us about how precious her time was and how we were wasting her time". Harvey's caucus colleague Di McCauley, herself later a minister, remarked in her 2004 memoir Diving Off The Ironing Board that Harvey "seemed unable to cope from the beginning in what was the enormous and difficult portfolio of Health."
One of Harvey's major tasks as Health Minister was to deal with the government's response to the growing AIDS
crisis. The issue had been essentially ignored under Bjelke-Petersen, but under the more moderate Ahern, Harvey was tasked with taking steps to begin to address the disease. To this extent, she oversaw the legalisation of condom vending machines and needle exchanges, and instituted a program of AIDS education in schools. These steps were seen by some as inadequate, and her role was undermined by her poor relationship with the homosexual community. These issues came to a head in March 1988 when Harvey put out a departmental memo insisting that she be given unrestricted access to the medical records of AIDS patients, sparking a bitter battle over patient confidentiality, and repeated Opposition calls for her to be removed from the portfolio.
, who toppled Ahern later that year.
Harvey received a major defeat in the 1989 state election, losing her seat to Labor candidate Gary Fenlon
with a 30% swing and finishing third behind both the Labor and Liberal candidates with only 11% of the vote. Three days later, as part of an investigation resulting from the findings of the Fitzgerald Inquiry
into public corruption, she was one of five former National Party ministers to receive criminal summons by special prosecutor Doug Drummond QC on charges of misappropriating public funds. The charges concerned her use of her official credit card for A$
42,364 in personal expenses, some of which it was alleged included taking her husband on a birthday trip to the Adelaide Grand Prix. She was subsequently convicted of misappropriation on 13 of the original 124 charges, concerning a total of $7,900, and sentenced to twelve months in prison in November 1990. The Court of Criminal Appeal later reduced the convictions to nine counts but did not reduce the sentence. In April 1991, the judge struck down a further 20 charges and released Harvey to serve the last seven months of her sentence in home detention. Harvey was due to face a retrial on the remaining 71 charges, but these charges were dropped in July 1991 by the Director of Public Prosecutions. She was released from prison in early 1991, and has largely remained outside of public life in the years since.
Politics of Queensland
The politics of Queensland has several unique features with respect to other states in Australia including a unicameral legislature.-Executive:...
. She was a National Party of Australia
National Party of Australia
The National Party of Australia is an Australian political party.Traditionally representing graziers, farmers and rural voters generally, it began as the The Country Party, but adopted the name The National Country Party in 1975, changed to The National Party of Australia in 1982. The party is...
member of the Queensland Legislative Assembly
Queensland Legislative Assembly
The Queensland Legislative Assembly is the unicameral chamber of the Parliament of Queensland. Elections are held approximately once every three years. Voting is by the Optional Preferential Voting form of the Alternative Vote system...
from 1983 to 1989, representing the electorate of Greenslopes
Electoral district of Greenslopes
-External links:*...
. She served as Minister for Health
Queensland Health
Queensland Health is the department of the Government of Queensland responsible for operating and administering the public health system of the Australian State of Queensland. It is responsible to the State's Health Minister Geoff Wilson and its Director-General is Tony O'Connell.Queensland Health...
in the Ahern government from 1987 until her sacking in January 1989. She lost her seat at the election that December, and was not long out of parliament when she was charged with numerous counts of misappropriation of public funds concerning her usage of her official credit card. After a high-profile trial in 1990 and subsequent conviction, she spent five months in prison and a further seven months in home detention.
Background
Harvey was born in 1947 to displaced PolishPoles
thumb|right|180px|The state flag of [[Poland]] as used by Polish government and diplomatic authoritiesThe Polish people, or Poles , are a nation indigenous to Poland. They are united by the Polish language, which belongs to the historical Lechitic subgroup of West Slavic languages of Central Europe...
parents in Münsingen
Münsingen, Germany
Münsingen is a town in the district of Reutlingen, Baden-Württemberg, Germany. It is situated 23 km southeast of Reutlingen, and 37 km west of Ulm.-History:...
, West Germany
West Germany
West Germany is the common English, but not official, name for the Federal Republic of Germany or FRG in the period between its creation in May 1949 to German reunification on 3 October 1990....
. The family immigrated to Queensland
Queensland
Queensland is a state of Australia, occupying the north-eastern section of the mainland continent. It is bordered by the Northern Territory, South Australia and New South Wales to the west, south-west and south respectively. To the east, Queensland is bordered by the Coral Sea and Pacific Ocean...
when she was three, and she was raised in Brisbane
Brisbane
Brisbane is the capital and most populous city in the Australian state of Queensland and the third most populous city in Australia. Brisbane's metropolitan area has a population of over 2 million, and the South East Queensland urban conurbation, centred around Brisbane, encompasses a population of...
thereafter, attending St Mary Immaculate Convent, Annerley, Buranda State School, St Ursula's College and Coorparoo High School. She studied education at Griffith University
Griffith University
Griffith University is a public, coeducational, research university located in the southeastern region of the Australian state of Queensland. The university has five satellite campuses located in the Gold Coast, Logan City and in the Brisbane suburbs of Mount Gravatt, Nathan and South Bank. Current...
and was a teacher in the special skills program at Springwood High School
Springwood High School
Springwood High School is a public high school situated in the City of Blue Mountains, New South Wales. Despite its name, geographically the school is actually in Faulconbridge. The school was established in 1967. Its motto is "Press Onward."-Description:...
for most of her career. A devout Roman Catholic
Roman Catholic Church
The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the world's largest Christian church, with over a billion members. Led by the Pope, it defines its mission as spreading the gospel of Jesus Christ, administering the sacraments and exercising charity...
, Harvey attended the evangelical Garden City Christian Church in Brisbane's southern suburbs. Harvey married in 1965 and had one son and one daughter, but divorced in 1975. She remarried in 1983.
Harvey contested and won National Party
National Party of Australia
The National Party of Australia is an Australian political party.Traditionally representing graziers, farmers and rural voters generally, it began as the The Country Party, but adopted the name The National Country Party in 1975, changed to The National Party of Australia in 1982. The party is...
preselection for the seat of Greenslopes
Electoral district of Greenslopes
-External links:*...
at the 1983 election. At the time, the seat was considered safe for the Liberal Party of Australia
Liberal Party of Australia
The Liberal Party of Australia is an Australian political party.Founded a year after the 1943 federal election to replace the United Australia Party, the centre-right Liberal Party typically competes with the centre-left Australian Labor Party for political office...
, the National Party's former junior coalition partner. However, in the wake of the breakdown of the coalition in the early 1980s, the National Party poured resources into Liberal-held seats in an attempt to destroy their former partners. On election day, Harvey achieved a large swing, easily defeating incumbent Liberal and former minister Bill Hewitt
Bill Hewitt (politician)
William "Bill" Douglas Hewitt is an Australian politician.Hewitt was a Liberal member of the Queensland Legislative Assembly from 5 May 1966 to 22 October 1983, representing the electorate of Chatsworth from 5 May 1966 to 12 November 1977 and Greenslopes from 12 November 1977 to 22 October 1983,...
and taking Greenslopes for the National Party for the first time in its history.
As a backbencher, Harvey's speeches reflected her strong support of small business (having spent a period in small business herself), the rights of the aged and the need for consumer protection. She was staunchly opposed to sex discrimination, but equally opposed to affirmative action. An ardent opponent of homosexuality, she often stated that homosexuality would "never be legalised in Queensland." She faced a minor scandal before the 1986 election concerning use of her electorate printing allowances to aid her re-election, but was easily re-elected, and for a time was seen as something of a rising star in the party.
Health Minister
In late 1987, amid mounting criticism from within the party, Joh Bjelke-PetersenJoh Bjelke-Petersen
Sir Johannes "Joh" Bjelke-Petersen, KCMG , was an Australian politician. He was the longest-serving and longest-lived Premier of Queensland, holding office from 1968 to 1987, a period that saw considerable economic development in the state...
, Premier of Queensland for nearly twenty years, resigned, and was succeeded by the more moderate Mike Ahern. Ahern immediately instituted a ministerial reshuffle, removing the heavily criticized Yvonne Chapman
Yvonne Chapman
Yvonne Ann Chapman is an Australian politician with the National Party of Australia. She was a Queensland Member of Parliament from 1983 until 1989 , and Mayor of the Shire of Pine Rivers .- Background :Chapman contested the 1994 mayoral election against sitting Shire Chairman Rob Akers and 4 others...
, the state's first female Cabinet minister, but promoting Harvey to the high-profile position of Minister for Health. Harvey thus became the only woman in the Ahern Cabinet and the second woman in Queensland history to serve as a Cabinet minister.
Harvey's time as Health Minister, however, was plagued with difficulties from the beginning. She was forced to deal with a major health crisis which had sparked threats by hospital doctors to resign en masse, the Ward 10B scandal surrounding abuse of psychiatric patients at Townsville Hospital
Townsville Hospital
The Townsville Hospital is a public tertiary care hospital in the city of Townsville and serves patients from the entire North Queensland region, with patients from as far as Mount Isa and Cape York being airlifted or transported to the Hospital on a daily basis. The hospital is relatively new and...
, and recurrent issues over the storage of toxic medical waste. She also came under attack for appointing her daughter and sister-in-law to her paid staff, as well as a woman previously convicted on fraud charges, and using government funds to pay her hairdressing bills, leading the opposition to dub her "Minister for Goldilocks". She had a difficult relationship with many in the medical profession; David Lindsay, former head of medicine at the Gold Coast Hospital
Gold Coast Hospital
Gold Coast Hospital, located on the Gold Coast, Queensland is a major teaching and referral hospital and the third largest in Queensland. The Gold Coast Hospital has one of the busiest emergency departments in the state...
, recounted in 2005 that Harvey "treated us like schoolchildren" and "told us about how precious her time was and how we were wasting her time". Harvey's caucus colleague Di McCauley, herself later a minister, remarked in her 2004 memoir Diving Off The Ironing Board that Harvey "seemed unable to cope from the beginning in what was the enormous and difficult portfolio of Health."
One of Harvey's major tasks as Health Minister was to deal with the government's response to the growing AIDS
AIDS
Acquired immune deficiency syndrome or acquired immunodeficiency syndrome is a disease of the human immune system caused by the human immunodeficiency virus...
crisis. The issue had been essentially ignored under Bjelke-Petersen, but under the more moderate Ahern, Harvey was tasked with taking steps to begin to address the disease. To this extent, she oversaw the legalisation of condom vending machines and needle exchanges, and instituted a program of AIDS education in schools. These steps were seen by some as inadequate, and her role was undermined by her poor relationship with the homosexual community. These issues came to a head in March 1988 when Harvey put out a departmental memo insisting that she be given unrestricted access to the medical records of AIDS patients, sparking a bitter battle over patient confidentiality, and repeated Opposition calls for her to be removed from the portfolio.
Downfall
Rumors had been mounting throughout late 1988 that Harvey was likely to be either demoted or fired, and in January 1989, Ahern announced that Harvey would be demoted to the position of Minister for Family Services, ostensibly on the basis of having failed to seek his approval for employing a woman who had previously been jailed for fraud. An angry Harvey responded by threatening to quit parliament and spark a by-election, which the government almost certainly would have lost. This was not taken well by many of her National Party colleagues, and after an internal outcry, Ahern retracted his prior decision and removed her from Cabinet altogether before she could be sworn in. Though she did not resign from parliament as previously threatened, she became an ardent backbench opponent of Ahern, and strongly supported his more conservative rival, Russell CooperRussell Cooper
Theo Russell Cooper is a former Australian National Party politician.He was Premier of Queensland for a period of 73 days, from 25 September 1989 to 7 December 1989...
, who toppled Ahern later that year.
Harvey received a major defeat in the 1989 state election, losing her seat to Labor candidate Gary Fenlon
Gary Fenlon
Gary Bernard Fenlon is an Australian politician. He was a Labor member for the Queensland Legislative Assembly from 1989 to 1995 and 1998 to 2009....
with a 30% swing and finishing third behind both the Labor and Liberal candidates with only 11% of the vote. Three days later, as part of an investigation resulting from the findings of the Fitzgerald Inquiry
Fitzgerald Inquiry
The Fitzgerald Inquiry into Queensland Police corruption was a judicial inquiry presided over by Tony Fitzgerald QC. The inquiry resulted in the deposition of a premier, two by-elections, the jailing of three former ministers and a police commissioner who was jailed and lost his...
into public corruption, she was one of five former National Party ministers to receive criminal summons by special prosecutor Doug Drummond QC on charges of misappropriating public funds. The charges concerned her use of her official credit card for A$
Australian dollar
The Australian dollar is the currency of the Commonwealth of Australia, including Christmas Island, Cocos Islands, and Norfolk Island, as well as the independent Pacific Island states of Kiribati, Nauru and Tuvalu...
42,364 in personal expenses, some of which it was alleged included taking her husband on a birthday trip to the Adelaide Grand Prix. She was subsequently convicted of misappropriation on 13 of the original 124 charges, concerning a total of $7,900, and sentenced to twelve months in prison in November 1990. The Court of Criminal Appeal later reduced the convictions to nine counts but did not reduce the sentence. In April 1991, the judge struck down a further 20 charges and released Harvey to serve the last seven months of her sentence in home detention. Harvey was due to face a retrial on the remaining 71 charges, but these charges were dropped in July 1991 by the Director of Public Prosecutions. She was released from prison in early 1991, and has largely remained outside of public life in the years since.