Date of Birth: 
Place of Birth: Perth, Western Australia, Australia
About Pam Buchanan
- Pamela Ann Buchanan (née Slocombe; 6 February 1937 – 31 March 1992) was an Australian politician who was a member of the Legislative Assembly of Western Australia between 1983 and 1992.
- She represented the Labor Party for the majority of her time in parliament, and was a minister in the Lawrence government, but resigned to sit as an independent in 1991. Buchanan was born in Perth to Doris May (née Brittain) and Walter Scott Slocombe.
- She attended Perth Girls' High School, and later went on to Perth Technical College.
- From 1967 to 1976, she was a preschool administrator in Roebourne, in the state's north-west, where she also ran an adult education centre for Aboriginals.
- A member of the Labor Party from 1976, from 1980 to 1982 Buchanan was an assistant in the Karratha office of Peter Dowding, a member of the Legislative Council for North Province and also a future premier.
- Later president of the party's Wickham branch, she ran for the seat of Pilbara at the 1983 state election, winning with 58.77% of the vote.
- She replaced the retiring Liberal member, Brian Sodeman, who had held the seat since 1974.
- Buchanan increased her majority to 64.67% at the 1986 election, after which she was made a government whip.At the 1989 election, Buchanan successfully transferred to the newly recreated seat of Ashburton, with her replacement in Pilbara, Larry Graham, retaining that seat for Labor.
- The re-elected Dowding government persisted only until February 1990, when it was replaced by the Lawrence government following Dowding's forced resignation.
- New premier Carmen Lawrence elevated Buchanan to the ministry as Minister for Works and Services and Minister for Regional Development.
- She was also made assistant minister to Lawrence in her capacity as Minister for Aboriginal Affairs.
- However, the regional development portfolio was abolished in December 1990, and Buchanan lost her remaining portfolios in February 1991, as part of a ministerial reshuffle prompted by an internal spill motion.
- Jeff Carr and Gavan Troy were also removed as ministers, with Carr consequently resigning from parliament.
- Buchanan herself resigned to sit as an independent on 1 February 1991, before the new ministry was sworn in four days later.
- She consequently became the first woman in the Parliament of Western Australia to sit as an independent.
- Buchanan resigned due to ill health just over a year later, in March 1992, and died at the end of that month, aged 55.
- She had married George Maitland Buchanan in April 1957, with whom she had two daughters.
- Her resignation prompted a by-election in Ashburton, which was won by the Labor candidate Fred Riebeling.
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