Joan Kirner

Joan Kirner was an ex-schoolteacher who became Victoria's first female Premier. It would be fair to say that the Australian Labor Party handed her a "poisoned chalice", given the massive unpopularity of the Cain government (see John Cain Jr) due to the economic woes the state experienced in the late 1980s.

Given her left-wing credentials she was not about to institute the harsh programme of economic rationalism that many people called for and was defeated at her first election by Jeff Kennett.

Preceded by: John Cain

List of Victorian Premiers

Followed by: Jeff Kennett