Janine Haines AM (8 May 1945 – 20 November 2004), Australian politician, was the first woman to lead a political party in Australia. An Australian Democrat, she was also the first member of that party to enter Federal Parliament after the party's formation.

Born in Tanunda, South Australia, Haines was was appointed to fill a casual vacancy in the Senate by the then Premier of South Australia Don Dunstan, on 14 December 1977. Dunstan was constitutionally obliged to appoint a Senator from the same party as the resigning Senator Steele Hall, who had been elected as a representative of the now-defunct Liberal Movement. Hall had in fact rejoined the Liberal Party. At his discretion Dunstan chose a member of the newly-founded Australian Democrats, which he regarded as the successor party to the Liberal Movement.

Haines lost her seat in the Senate when Hall's term expired in 1978, but was re-elected in 1980 as support for the Democrats grew. Haines was elected to lead the Democrats on 14 August 1986, succeeding party founder Don Chipp.

She remained leader until her resignation from the Senate to run for the House of Representatives in the Division of Kingston in the March 1990 election. Despite the strong performance of the party, she failed to win the marginal but consistently Labor seat in the lower house; she had promised not to seek a return to the Senate, and so her role in national politics was over by default. Her formal leadership ended in mid-1990 with the successful challenge of Janet Powell. Haines was later inducted as a Member of the Order of Australia (AM) on 11 June 2001.

Having suffered a series of strokes from 2001 due to a long-term degenerative neurological condition, Haines died in 2004, aged 59.

Her book, Suffrage to Sufferance: One Hundred Years of Women in Politics (Allen and Unwin, North Sydney, 1992, ISBN 1863733655), was still used as a course text in Australian universities and secondary schools as of 2004.

External links

• Obituary (http://www.smh.com.au/news/National/Janine-Haines-dies-aged-59/2004/11/21/1100972254636.html) in the The Sydney Morning Herald