A once only candidate whose later career was in private practice of the law, Claire Newton joined the Lismore branch of the ALP in 1982 and was their candidate in the 1984 New South Wales Legislative Assembly elections. At the time of her campaign she had been employed at the Lismore Women's Refuge for 4 years.

Claire Newton was educated to fourth form at St Bernadette's Secondary Modern School, Bristol and finished her schooling at Fairfield Girls' High School, after arriving in Australia in 1972 and moving to Lismore in 1977. In the 1990s, Claire Newton completed an associate diploma in law and worked for some time as a paralegal. She then returned to study and finished a law degree (LL.B.) at the Southern Cross University. She is married, with two daughters and works with a firm of solicitors in Ballina.

Sources used to compile this entry: Putting Skirts on the Sacred Benches: Women Candidates for the New South Wales Parliament, Australian Women's Archives Project, 2006, http://www.womenaustralia.info/exhib/pssb/home.html; The Radical, vol. 15, no. 1, March 1984; Claire Newton, 23 June 2005.