Carmel Holmes

Carmel Maude Holmes (born 5 December 1945) is a former Australian politician.

Charles, Carmel, Philippa and Andrew Holmes

Carmel Holmes - 1984

Carmel was born in Winnaleah, a small country town in the North East of Tasmania where her parents and grand parents farmed and ran a dairy herd. She attended St Thomas More's Ladies College in Launceston.

At the age of 19 she started a recruitment business. In 1976 Carmel Clark married Charles Holmes and in 1978 Carmel and Charles moved from Launceston to Hobart to expand their business and open a branch of Holmes Consulting Group which specialized in Personnel Management, Executive Search Training and Development. In1982 Carmel went on to win the Tasmanian Businesswoman of the year.

In 1984 she easily won the seat of Denison following the resignation of the former Deputy Premier. Carmel received 3830 votes to Dr Nigel Abbott's 107. She became the first Liberal woman in 20 years to become a Parliamentary member, and the third in Australian history. At the time she was the only Liberal Woman member in Government in Australia.

Her areas of interest were Employment, Youth Affairs, Small Business and Community Welfare. Although she supported Government policy on almost all occasions, she was not afraid to speak her mind and exercised her right to do so over the re-location of Nurses training from being hospital based and the proposal of a Nurses training college to be solely located in the north of the state. She was interested in women's issues but did not want to be slotted into a particular role because of her gender. An early election was called and Carmel lost her seat even though she polled more primary votes.

She then returned to world of business and went on to develop and refurbish a flour mill in Hobart and old Granary in Launceston into serviced offices.

Carmel was an astute businesswomen. For her family she'll be remembered for her fearless & unwavering love for mother Louie, husband Charles, children Andrew and Philippa and grandchildren Nikki and Jessie. Macy her favorite boxer will always get a special mention.

In 1984 she was elected to the Tasmanian House of Assembly as a Liberal member for Denison in a countback following Max Bingham's resignation. She was defeated at the next election in 1986.^[1]

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