Jo Vallentine

Josephine Vallentine (born 30 May 1946) is an Australian peace activist and politician, a former senator for Western Australia. She entered the Senate on 1 July 1985 after election as a member of the Nuclear Disarmament Party but sat as an independent and then as a member of the Greens Western Australia from 1 July 1990. She resigned on 31 January 1992.

Personal life Jo Vallentine grew up in Beverley, in Western Australia's Wheatbelt area. As a young woman she travelled to the United States and was moved to hear and meet Robert F. Kennedy.

Political career In an interview in 2001 for a history of the WA peace movement she said: "The Quakers influenced me I suppose from the Vietnam Moratorium days because I was a teacher then, in 1967-69, when the marches were getting going in Perth, and I can remember being a bit nervous because in those days if you were seen in a protest you might have lost your job on Monday when you went to work."

At her first election campaign in 1984, media interest was focused on the NDP Senate candidate for New South Wales, Midnight Oil's singer Peter Garrett. However, under the Australian Senate's voting system of proportional representation, Western Australia was the only state to return an NDP senator.

Soon after her election, Jo Vallentine resigned from the NDP, held her Senate seat as an independent and was re-elected in the 1987 election. She also marched on the American Clark Air Base in the Philippines in 1989. In 1990, as the inaugural Greens WA Senate candidate, she was re-elected again but resigned on health grounds before completing her term.

In 2005 Vallentine was one of six Australian women nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize.

Former South Australian Liberal Senator Mary Jo Fisher is Vallentine's niece.