Mary Wooldridge

Wooldridge also legislated secondary supply laws which prohibited serving alcohol in a private residence to minors, without their parents’ permission. She also led a number of other public health campaigns, funding the hard-hitting What are you doing on ICE?, alcohol campaigns Name that point and No excuse needed, as well as the cannabis education campaign Don't let your dreams go up in smoke.

Following 2018 Victorian State Election, Wooldridge was appointed Shadow Minister for Innovation, Jobs and Trade, Shadow Minister for Higher Education and Shadow Minister for Training and Skills. Wooldridge announced her intention to retire from state politics on 8 December 2019, using the moment to call on the Liberal Party to consider gender quotas as a way of increasing female representation in the Victorian Parliament.

Following the November 2014 election, Wooldridge was elected to the Legislative Council as a representative for the Eastern Metropolitan Region and was subsequently elected by her colleagues as Leader of the Opposition in the Legislative Council and appointed Shadow Minister for Health.

In 2013, a redistribution of electoral boundaries saw Wooldridge's seat of Doncaster abolished. She stood for preselection for the seat of Kew, but despite the support of the Premier, lost preselection to Tim Smith. She contested a seat in the Upper House for the Eastern Metropolitan Region.

Wooldridge was the responsible Minister during the Protecting Victoria’s Vulnerable Children Inquiry in 2011. She tabled the Report of the Inquiry on 27 January 2012. The Inquiry Panel made 90 recommendations for measures to reduce the incidence and negative impact of child abuse and neglect in Victoria in ten major system reform areas.

Wooldridge was the state Minister for Mental Health, Minister for Women's Affairs and Minister for Community Services from 2010 to 2014, serving under both Ted Baillieu and Denis Napthine. She was elected as leader of the Liberal Party in the Legislative Council in December 2014 and appointed as the Shadow Minister for Health.

The Liberal party was defeated at the election and remained in Opposition. Despite being a new Member, Wooldridge was appointed to five Shadow Ministries. She was Shadow Minister for Mental Health, Drug Abuse, Community Services and Environment and Climate Change.[1] One of the issues which came up in her first term was the lack of rail transport in the City of Manningham. In April 2010, she said the Opposition "strongly supported" the council's plans to extend the number 48 tram to the rapidly developing Doncaster Hill precinct.

When the Coalition won the 2010 state election, Wooldridge was appointed to the Baillieu Ministry as Minister for Mental Health, Women's Affairs and Community Services (her brother Michael, incidentally, had been Federal Health Minister in 1996–2001). When Denis Napthine replaced Baillieu as Premier, Wooldridge also became Minister for Disability Services and Reform, ceding the Women's Affairs portfolio to Heidi Victoria.

In May 2006 she was preselected as the Liberal candidate for the seat of Doncaster to replace retiring member Victor Perton, and was elected to the Parliament of Victoria in November 2006.

Between 2001 and 2005 Wooldridge was the chief executive of The Foundation For Young Australians, a not-for-profit charitable trust. In 2002 she was awarded the new Chief executive officer award in Equity Trustees National Nonprofit CEO awards for this role.

From 1999 to 2001 Wooldridge worked as a Senior Adviser to Senator the Hon Nick Minchin. As part of her duties with the Senator, Wooldridge took part in an overseas trip that was the cause of some consternation for the Federal Labor Opposition.

Wooldridge was born and raised in Melbourne and is the youngest of four children. She graduated from Melbourne University with a Bachelor of Commerce degree with Honours in 1989. In 1994 she completed a Master of Business Administration (MBA) from the Harvard Business School. She is the sister of Michael Wooldridge, a former federal Deputy Leader of the Liberal Party.

Mary Louise Newling Wooldridge (born 29 July 1967) is a former Australian politician. She was a Liberal Party member of the Parliament of Victoria from 2006 to 2019. She was a member of the Victorian Legislative Assembly, representing the seat of Doncaster from 2006 to 2014; her seat was abolished in a redistribution for that year's election, and she was subsequently elected to the Victorian Legislative Council for Eastern Metropolitan Region in November's state election.