Nicola Roxon

Nicola Louise Roxon (born 1 April 1967) is an Australian former politician. After politics, she has worked as a company director and academic.

Roxon represented the lower house seat of Gellibrand in Victoria for the Australian Labor Party; from the 1998 federal election until her retirement in August 2013. Between 2011 and 2013, Roxon was the first female Attorney-General of Australia.

Post politics, Roxon was appointed an adjunct professor at Victoria University, board chair at VicHealth, and at HESTA.

Early and personal life Roxon was born in Sydney. She is the second of three daughters and the niece of the late Australian journalist and Sydney Push member Lillian Roxon. Her paternal grandparents were Jewish and migrated from Poland to Australia in 1937. Anglicising the family name from Ropschitz to Roxon, her grandfather worked as a GP in Gympie and Brisbane, Queensland. Her mother Lesley trained as a pharmacist, while her father Jack was a microbiologist. He was a strong influence in her life and she was devastated by his death from cancer when she was 10 years old.

Roxon was educated at the Methodist Ladies' College in the suburb of Kew in Melbourne. She studied for a Bachelor of Arts and Bachelor of Laws at the University of Melbourne, winning the university medal for law. She ultimately came to the view that "governments have got a role to make sure they can help people in circumstances they can't control—either through their health failing or an accident".

Political career

Roxon was elected to the comfortably safe Labor seat of Gellibrand in 1998, succeeding longtime member Ralph Willis.

She served on a number of committees, including the Standing Committee on Industry, Science and Resources and the Joint Select Committee on the Republic Referendum.

Minister for Health In February 2009, Roxon attempted to introduce legislation backing the alcopops tax increase into parliament.

In 2010, Roxon aimed to introduce major health reform in Australia. She said the Government would hold a referendum on hospital reform even if the Senate rejected the idea.

In 2012, Roxon was featured in the Australian Story television program in an episode entitled "Kicking The Habit", about her advocacy for plain cigarette packaging.

Attorney-General Prime Minister Julia Gillard implemented a major change to her Cabinet on 14 December 2011. Roxon was promoted from Health and Ageing to become Australia's first woman to serve as Attorney-General. In a reshuffle announced on 2 March 2012, Roxon was given the additional portfolio of Emergency Management. She was sworn into that portfolio on 5 March.

She was inducted onto the Victorian Honour Roll of Women in 2014.