Shelley Archer

Shelley Frances Archer (born 15 October 1958) is an Australian politician. She was an Australian Labor Party member of the Western Australian Legislative Council from May 2005, representing the Mining and Pastoral electoral region. A former union official, she was one of several state MPs to become involved in the 2006-2007 Corruption and Crime Commission investigation into the dealings of former-Premier-turned-lobbyist Brian Burke. The partner of influential unionist Kevin Reynolds, she was associated with the conservative wing of the party.

Shelley Archer resigned from the ALP in November 2007.

Archer was born into a family of sixteen children. She is the daughter of Ted Archer, a prominent unionist with the Shop, Distributive and Allied Employees Association and Australian Workers' Union. She worked in several government departments throughout the 1980s, and was the cause of some controversy when she was promoted from a junior position with the Office of the Parliamentary Secretary in the Department of Premier and Cabinet to a much more senior position with the state Office of Industrial Relations in 1989. It was during this time, in 1990, that she began a relationship with unionist Kevin Reynolds, whom she later married. She was subsequently sacked by the OIR in 1992 after being tried and convicted on 35 counts of welfare fraud, and unsuccessfully appealed the decision to the state Industrial Relations Commission. The conviction was later declared spent in 2002, after the requisite ten-year period had passed.

In 1993, Archer took up a position as an industrial advocate with the State School Teachers Union. She worked with the union for four years before being fired amidst union infighting in 1998. She had been on stress leave for six months prior to her dismissal due to claimed harassment by colleagues. Archer subsequently won an unfair dismissal case against the union, successfully arguing that she had been targeted because of her relationship with Reynolds, but lost a separate action for discrimination. She later worked as a senior industrial organiser with the Australian Nursing Federation, before gaining a position as an electorate officer to Legislative Council member Graham Giffard, a position which she held until her election to parliament in 2005. She made an unsuccessful bid for the national presidency of the ALP in 2003. Archer served as the campaign director for the campaign of Cimlie Bowden for the seat of Canning at the 2004 federal election.

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