Kim Chance

The Honourable Kim Chance

Member of the Legislative Council of Western Australia
In office 18 March 1992 – 21 May 2009
Constituency	Agricultural Region

Personal details
Born	Kimberley Maurice Chance (1946-11-16)16 November 1946 Perth, Western Australia, Australia
Died	22 February 2017(2017-02-22) (aged 70) Perth, Western Australia, Australia
Political party	Labor

Kimberley Maurice "Kim" Chance (16 November 1946 – 22 February 2017) was an Australian farmer and politician who served as a Labor Party member of the Legislative Council of Western Australia from 1992 to 2009, representing Agricultural Region. He served as a minister in the governments of Geoff Gallop and Alan Carpenter between 2001 and 2008.

Chance was born in Perth, Western Australia, the son of Hazel Isobel (née Prowse) and Geoffrey Maurice Chance. His uncle, Edgar Prowse, was a Country Party senator. Chance was raised on his father's property at Doodlakine, and then boarded at Wesley College, Perth. He returned to Doodlakine to engage in sharefarming, and later farmed on his own land, initially at Doodlakine and later at Carrabin. Chance served on the executive of the Western Australian Farmers Federation, including as treasurer, and was a state delegate to the National Farmers Federation. He was also a board member of the Water Authority of Western Australia from 1985 to 1992, and a director of the Avon Football Association.

Chance joined the Labor Party in 1971. He first stood for parliament at the 1983 federal election, running for the House of Representatives in the Division of O'Connor (a safe seat for the Liberal Party). Chance contested three more federal elections over the following decade (in 1984, 1987, and 1990), but lost to Wilson Tuckey of the Liberal Party on each occasion. His share of the vote in O'Connor decreased at every election, both in terms of first preferences and on the two-party-preferred count, although this was consistent with Labor's nationwide trends.