Margaret Ann May Australia

Australia

Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...

n politician, was a 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...

 member of the Australian House of Representatives

Australian House of Representatives

The House of Representatives is one of the two houses of the Parliament of Australia; it is the lower house; the upper house is the Senate. Members of Parliament serve for terms of approximately three years....

 from October 1998 to July 2010, representing McPherson

Division of McPherson

The Division of McPherson is an Australian Electoral Division in Queensland. The division was created in 1948 and is named for the McPherson Range, which forms one of the divisional boundaries...

, 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...

.

May was born in Ba, Fiji

Fiji

Fiji , officially the Republic of Fiji , is an island nation in Melanesia in the South Pacific Ocean about northeast of New Zealand's North Island...

, and was educated at Seaforth

Seaforth, New South Wales

Seaforth is a suburb of northern Sydney, in the state of New South Wales, Australia. Seaforth is located 12 kilometres north-east of the Sydney central business district in the local government area of Manly Council and is part of the Northern Beaches region....

 TAFE College in Sydney

Sydney

Sydney is the most populous city in Australia and the state capital of New South Wales. Sydney is located on Australia's south-east coast of the Tasman Sea. As of June 2010, the greater metropolitan area had an approximate population of 4.6 million people...

. She was a financial administrator with the New South Wales Department of Education 1982-88 and an electorate secretary before entering politics.

May was elected to the seat of McPherson at the 1998 election. She defeated her Labor challenger local Councillor Eddy Saroff at the 2007 election and was subsequently appointed to the Outer Shadow Ministry as Shadow Minister for Ageing until the change in Liberal leadership in December 2009

Liberal Party of Australia leadership election, 2009

An election for the federal parliamentary leader of the Liberal Party of Australia was held on 1 December 2009. The incumbent, Malcolm Turnbull, was defeated by Tony Abbott in a three-way vote of Liberal Party Members of Parliament . Joe Hockey also stood as a candidate...

.

On 14 August 2009 she announced that she would retire at the 2010 federal election.