Allison Ritchie

Allison Maree Ritchie (born 28 July 1974, Hobart) was a member of the Tasmanian Legislative Council (upper house) for Pembroke from 2001 to 2009.

Ritchie grew up on Hobart’s Eastern Shore and attended Mornington Primary School, Clarence High School, Rosny College and the University of Tasmania. Coming form a family with strong political connections (an aunt, Carol Brown, is a federal senator and a great uncle was a state president of the ALP) Ritchie joined the Labor Party at age 14.

From 1993-1996 Ritchie worked as a manager for a private information technology company.

From 1996-2001 Ritchie was employed as the Executive Assistant to the State Secretary of the Tasmanian Branch of the Australian Labor Party. Ritchie held many positions within the Party, including Branch Secretary, Platform Committee Member, Administrative Committee Member and Southern Convenor of the Labor Women’s Network.

On 5 May 2001, Ritchie was elected to the Legislative Council. She was the youngest person ever elected to the Tasmanian upper house.

A notable component of her election campaign focussed on electoral reform and in particular, the disallowance of Members of Parliament to hold Local Government positions at the same time and the introduction of compulsory voting for Local Government elections.

On 24 November 2001, Ritchie became the first MP to marry for the first time while in office with her marriage to husband, David Cowle. She also became the first woman to give birth while a member of the Legislative Council with the birth of her son in December 2002.

Following her election, Ritchie self funded an electorate office for service provision to constituents. The model that was developed subsequently became the standard for all State MPs and are now Government funded to allow all MPs to establish electorate offices with appropriate staffing.

Ritchie was successful in achieving a number of improvements to the democratic processes of Tasmania. She implemented improved transparency of the Tasmanian electoral system by securing the requirement for party affiliation information to be present on ballot papers for Legislative Council elections while serving as a Member of the Parliamentary Working Group into the 2004 Review of the Tasmanian Electoral Act.

Ritchie also developed the concept of mobile parking zones for people with disability. The Tasmanian Electoral Commission introduced the system for polling booths without permanent disability parking zones thereby improving the access and democratic participation of people with disabilities.

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