Jennifer Cashmore in strong stands on green, health, palliative care, State Bank issues as South Australian MP
Jennifer Cashmore's time as Liberal state government minister and shadow minister in the South Australian House of Assembly was characterised by determined stances, backed up of deep research as spelled out her essays published as A Chance in Life (inset).
Jennifer Cashmore’s career in South Australia’s politics was distinguished by her brave stand on issues in environment, health and palliative care – plus her warnings on dangers to the State Bank.
After a short career in journalism and advertising copywriting, Cashmore moved into public relations before being elected in 1977 she was elected to the South Australian House of Assembly as the Liberal member for the eastern suburbs seat of Coles. Under her married name Adamson, Cashmore was the third woman to be elected to the House of Assembly after Liberal Joyce Steele (1959) and Labor’s Molly Byrne (1965).
Cashmore became South Australia's first female health minister in 1979 and handled health and tourism portfolios in the David Tonkin Liberal government from 1979-82. Cashmore held shadow portfolios between 1982 and 1989, including environment and planning, the arts and the economy. Cashmore resigned from the Liberal front bench in 1989 after the environment portfolio was taken from after a dispute with Liberal party leader John Olsen over the proposed Wilpena Station resort. Her opposition to the resort plan included threatening to stand in front of the bulldozers and even writing a poem/song, to reach a larger audience.
Cashmore sat on the Liberal back bench until retiring from politics in 1993. For 12 of close to 17 years in the House of Assembly, she was the only woman representing her party.
Cashmore, who’d suggested cigarettes should be sold by pharmacies in brown paper bags, announced she would cross the floor to vote with the Labor government’s 1988 bill to ban cigarette advertising. The Liberal party filibustered until 2am but Cashmore stayed for the vote, despite having a broken ankle and on crutches – and getting married the next day to journalist and author Stewart Cockburn. (She had reverted to her maiden name, Cashmore, in 1986 after her marriage to Ian Adamson ended.)
Cashmore’s position on environmental issues led to her being the “green conscience” of the state Liberal Party. In the early 1990s she argued that a solar hydrogen-based economy was a logical for South Australia, given its natural resources. As shadow treasurer, Cashmore was the first to raise questions in parliament about the State Bank lending practices. Criticised by business, banking industry, the media and other politicians, Cashmore was vindicated by State Bank’s collapse two years later.
Cashmore worked from opposition to get major changes that produced the Consent to Medical Treatment and Palliative Care Act 1995 – the foundation law on informed consent, advance care directives, medical powers of attorney, and palliative care. In 1990 Cashmore proposed a select committee to address compassionate care for the dying. The seven-person committee proposed a bill in 1992 but it lapsed due to the change of government.
Frustrated that her speeches based on months of research and reflection received a limited audience, Cashmore reworked her speeches as essays and published them as A Chance in Life (1991). In May 1992, Cashmore unsuccessfully challenged John Olsen and Dean Brown for the Liberal Party leadership and retired at the next year’s election.
She continued to be involved in debates regarding end of life, care for the ageing and community health. She sat on the ministerial advisory board on ageing, was chair of the South Australian association for hospice and palliative care and patron of the Alzheimer's association. She was on the first board of the charitable and social welfare fund and the national childcare accreditation council. The inaugural Jennifer Cashmore Oration, looking at the intersect of medical treatment and patients' rights, was presented by the History Trust of South Australia in 2021.
Cashmore was followed as students of Adelaide Walford School by her daughter Frances (South Australia’s governor from 2021) and Christine (a New South Wales supreme court judge).
