Woman Lees, Meg Heather

Occupation
Parliamentarian and Teacher

Written by Caitlin Stone, The University of Melbourne

Meg Lees was born in Sydney, New South Wales in 1948. She entered federal parliament in 1990 as senator for South Australia. She was elected leader of the Australian Democrats following the defection of Cheryl Kernot in 1997 and served until 2001, when she was replaced by Natasha Stott Despoja. Meg Lees had a pivotal - and controversial -role in the introduction of the Goods and Services Tax (GST) to Australia in 2000.

In 2002, she left the Australian Democrats and, in 2003, formed a new party, the Australian Progress Alliance but was not re-elected to the Parliament when her term expired in 2005.

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