Representative Joanne Ryan Contact information

Joanne Catherine Ryan, a former schoolteacher and now a prominent Australian politician, was born on July 29, 1961, in Werribee, Victoria. She grew up as the seventh of eight children to Dot (née Farrell) and Gerald Ryan, who was a farmer. Unfortunately, her father passed away in 1973. Ryan attended St. Andrew’s Catholic Primary School and Mary MacKillop Girls College before pursuing a teaching degree at Melbourne State College in 1980.

After completing her degree, Ryan worked at Darwin High School in the Northern Territory before moving back to Victoria to teach at Laverton High School and Galvin Park Secondary College. At Galvin Park, she worked as an assistant principal and acting principal before being appointed as the principal of Moonee Ponds Central School.

Ryan resigned from her position as principal after 18 months in order to stand for parliament in 2013. She was successful in winning ALP preselection for the Division of Lalor, representing Melbourne’s western suburbs, following the retirement of former prime minister Julia Gillard. Despite not being a party member for at least 12 months before the ballot, Ryan was granted special dispensation to be a candidate for preselection. She was endorsed by Gillard, with whom she had worked during the 1990s. Ryan went on to win the Lalor seat in the 2013 federal election, and she has been re-elected at the 2016, 2019, and 2022 Federal Elections.

Since October 2013, Ryan has served as one of the ALP’s whips. Following the election of the Albanese Labor Government, she was elected Chief Government Whip in the House of Representatives in 2022. Ryan has been an active member of her community, having served as the chair of Werribee Residents Against Toxic Dump (WRATD) from 1996 to 1998. She co-wrote a play with Janet Brown, titled A Hole in the Ground, about the campaign against CSR converting its Werribee quarry into a “prescribed waste landfill.”

In September 2017, Ryan intervened in the preselection process for the state seat of Tarneit and called for the expulsion of candidate Intaj Khan from the ALP. In response, Khan threatened to sue her for defamation. Ryan has remained a dedicated and committed member of the ALP, representing her constituents and advocating for the issues that matter to them.