Name Jan Wade | Role Politician | |
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Jan Louise Murray Wade, née Noone (born 8 July 1937) is a former Australian politician.
She was born in Sydney to John Murray Noone and Lillian, née Knight. She attended Sydney High School and Firbank Girls' Grammar School and graduated from the University of Melbourne in 1959 with a Bachelor of Law. (She would later achieve a Bachelor of Arts in 1979.) She married Francis Bannatyne Lewis, with whom she had four children. From 1960 to 1961 she worked in London as a schoolteacher before returning to Australia as a law tutor at the University of Melbourne from 1963 to 1964. A solicitor from 1964 to 1967, she joined the Parliamentary Counsel's office in 1967, becoming Assistant Chief Parliamentary Counsel in 1978. Also in 1978 she married Peter Brian Wade, and, in so doing, acquired a step-daughter. In 1979 she was appointed Commissioner for Corporate Affairs, and in 1985 President of the Equal Opportunity Board. In 1988 she was elected in a by-election to the Victorian Legislative Assembly as the Liberal member for Kew. After her election she became Shadow Attorney-General; she moved to Women's Affairs in 1989 but resumed her previous role in 1990. Following the Coalition victory at the 1992 state election she became Attorney-General and Minister for Fair Trading and Women's Affairs. She retired from politics in 1999, since which time she has been a visiting professor for Victoria University and writer of an occasional column in the Australian Financial Review.