Main Page | See live article | Alphabetical index Joan Kirner was an ex-schoolteacher who became Victoria's first female Premier. It would be fair to say that the Australian Labor Party handed her a "poisoned chalice", given the massive unpopularity of the Cain government (see John Cain Jr) due to the economic woes the state experienced in the late 1980s. Given her left-wing credentials she was not about to institute the harsh programme of economic rationalism that many people called for and was defeated at her first election by Jeff Kennett. Preceded by: John Cain List of Victorian Premiers Followed by: Jeff Kennett This article is from Wikipedia. All text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License.