Pam Beggs

The Honourable
Pam Beggs
Member of the Legislative Assembly
of Western Australia
In office
19 February 1983 – 6 February 1993
Preceded byMick Nanovich
Succeeded byRob Johnson
ConstituencyWhitford
Personal details
Born
Pamela Anne Austin

(1947-05-23) 23 May 1947 (age 77)
Inverell, New South Wales, Australia
Political partyLabor

Pamela Anne Beggs (née Austin; born 23 May 1947) is a former Australian politician who was a Labor Party member of the Legislative Assembly of Western Australia from 1983 to 1993, representing the seat of Whitford.

Beggs was born in Inverell, a country town in northern New South Wales, and raised in country Western Australia, attending primary school in Greenbushes and high school in Bridgetown and Bunbury. After leaving school, she served in the Women's Royal Australian Air Force (WRAAF) for a period, and subsequently worked as a dietician and as a laboratory assistant. After her marriage in 1972, she and her husband operated a roadhouse near Geraldton for a period, later moving to the northern suburbs of Perth. Beggs joined the Labor Party in 1977, and at the 1983 state election was preselected for the seat of Whitford.[1] She won the contest with 57.7 percent of the vote, as Labor (led by Brian Burke) won in a landslide.[2]

Following the 1986 election, where she increased her majority, Beggs was appointed to the Burke ministry as Minister for Tourism and Minister for Racing and Gaming. She and Kay Hallahan became the first women to serve as ministers in a Labor government.[3] When Burke retired in 1988, Beggs retained her portfolios in the new ministry led by Peter Dowding, and was additionally made Minister for Housing. In a reshuffle in February 1989, she was kept on as Minister for Housing and also made Minister for Planning, but lost her other portfolios. When Carmen Lawrence became premier in February 1990, Beggs was made Minister for Transport in the Lawrence ministry, and also regained two of her previous titles (becoming Minister for Tourism and Minister for Racing and Gaming for a second time).[1] However, at the 1993 state election, she was defeated in Whitford by the Liberal candidate, Rob Johnson, bringing her career in politics to an end. The Lawrence government was also defeated.[2]

  1. ^ a b Pamela Anne Beggs – Biographical Register of Members of the Parliament of Western Australia. Retrieved 8 May 2016.
  2. ^ a b Black, David; Prescott, Valerie (1997). Election statistics : Legislative Assembly of Western Australia, 1890-1996. Perth, [W.A.]: Western Australian Parliamentary History Project and Western Australian Electoral Commission. ISBN 0730984095.
  3. ^ Black, David and Phillips, Harry (2000). Making a Difference: Women in the Western Australian Parliament 1921–1999 (PDF). Parliament House, Perth, Western Australia: Parliament of Western Australia. pp. 131–133. ISBN 0-7307-4464-7.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link) CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)