Loraine Braham

Loraine Margaret Braham (born 21 August 1938) is an Australian politician.

Braham was born in Victoria, and initially trained as an infant teacher, graduating from the Melbourne Teachers College in 1958.

She subsequently spent four years teaching in Melbourne, during which time she married her late husband, Graeme, in 1960.

When he finished his military service in 1962, they decided to leave Melbourne and move north.

After a short period spent opal mining in Andamooka, South Australia, they settled in Alice Springs.

Braham continued working as a teacher for many years, culminating in an eight-year stint as the principal of the Braitling School.

While continuing as principal, she also served as an alderman on the Alice Springs Town Council from 1988 to 1994, and completed a Graduate Diploma in Public Sector Executive Management at the Northern Territory University.

She was a member of the Northern Territory Legislative Assembly from 1994 to 2008, representing the electorate of Braitling.

She was initially elected as a representative of the Country Liberal Party, serving in that role from 1994 until 2001, but retained her seat as an independent after being disendorsed before the 2001 election.

In 1994, long-serving Country Liberal Party minister Roger Vale announced his resignation as the member for the electorate of Braitling, and Braham decided to nominate in the preselection contest to decide his replacement.

She had some difficulty in winning pre-selection, at one point seeking the advice of soon-to-be Chief Minister Shane Stone, but eventually prevailed.

As Braitling has usually been a very safe seat for the CLP, Braham was easily elected, and subsequently became the first woman ever to be elected to the Assembly from central Australia.

She was the Speaker of the Northern Territory Legislative Assembly from 1997 to 1999 and again from 2001 to 2005.

Braham served out a relatively uneventful first term as a backbencher, but when she attempted to recontest her seat at the 1997 election, she faced an unexpected preselection challenge from local policeman John Elferink.

She prevailed, however, and Elferink was given MacDonnell as consolation.

She found herself promoted to her first parliamentary appointment immediately after the election, when Stone nominated her as the first ever female Speaker of the Assembly.

Braham's first term as Speaker was not particularly eventful, although some of her rulings from the chair caused a significant falling out with Stone.

Braham also served as a minister in the Stone government from 1999 to 2000.

When Stone faced a leadership crisis in February 1999 and subsequently resigned, it was widely rumoured that Braham's opposition had played a part in his downfall.

Stone was replaced as Chief Minister by Denis Burke.

Within a week of Burke taking over, he promoted Braham to cabinet as Minister for Local Government, Minister for Housing, Minister for Aboriginal Development and Minister for central Australia, replacing Eric Poole in the ministry.

Terry McCarthy succeeded her as Speaker.

Braham's five years as a backbencher and Speaker had generally been uneventful, but her term as a minister saw mixed results.

She was quite prominent as Minister for Central Australia, maintaining a high profile and playing a role in negotiations surrounding the construction of the Adelaide-Darwin railway, overseeing the initiation of "Alice in 10", a major urban renewal project in Alice Springs, and agitating successfully for the construction of a convention centre in Alice Springs, among other achievements.

This contrasted with difficulties in both of her other portfolios.

She found herself under attack over the state of public housing in the Territory, and struggled to deal with the substandard living conditions in many remote indigenous communities.

There were also some concerns hanging over her performance in central Australia, however, with the Alice Springs News once labelling her the "Minister for Official Openings", and suggesting that she was proving ineffective.

On 25 November 2000, the CLP's central council held a closed-doors meeting, and in a very rare move that was dubbed "the Night of the Long Knives" by the Alice Springs News, overruled most of the Alice Springs branch's preselection decisions.

Amidst a swath of other changes, the Council reinstated Elferink, selected Carney for Araluen, and overturned Braham's preselection.

Peter Harvey, who had previously been chosen over Carney in Araluen, replaced Braham as CLP candidate in Braitling.

In one sudden twist, Braham's career in the legislature appeared to be over.

While the CLP had dropped sitting MPs before, Braham was the first sitting CLP minister to lose her preselection.

Burke initially refused to comment on whether Braham would remain in the ministry while serving out her term.

However, he sacked Braham from cabinet three days later, with her portfolios being given to backbencher Dr Richard Lim.

Speculation then turned to Braham's future; specifically, whether she would contest the seat as an independent.

With the 2001 election on the distant horizon, Braham made clear her intention to run again.

She was initially preselected by the Alice Springs branch of the Country Liberal Party for a third term in Braitling.

However, the other decisions of the branch proved to be quite controversial – Elferink was dropped, and prominent Araluen hopeful Jodeen Carney was overlooked.

As a result, Elferink wrote a letter to the party's Central Council complaining about the situation, reportedly suggesting that Braham had used proxy votes to stack the Alice Springs branch pre-selection committee, and that five delegates, instead of being elected, had been appointed by Stuart branch president, MP aspirant and Braham staffer Tony Bohning.

The fallout from Elferink's letter was immense.