
Fiona Patten MP was elected in 2014 as a Member of the Victorian Legislative Council for the Northern Metropolitan Region. Voters then rewarded Fiona for all her hard work by re-electing her in 2018.
Fiona is Leader of the Reason Party. Reason is a future-focused, evidence-based movement committed to delivering equality, sustainability and freedom through new methods of political engagement and pragmatic consultation.
She is currently the Chair of the Victorian Parliament’s Legal and Social Issues Committee – the only independent Committee. Fiona is leading the Inquiry into Cannabis Use in Victoria, oversaw the Inquiry into Drug Law Reform and the recent wide-ranging Victorian Inquiry into Homelessness. The committee has just commenced an inquiry into Victoria’s Criminal Justice System.
Fiona is also a member of the Scrutiny of Acts and Regulation Committee, Acting President in the Legislative Council and sits on the Victorian Industrial Hemp Taskforce with the Minister for Agriculture and the Member for Mildura.
In 2019, Fiona was selected to Chair the Government Review of Sex Work Laws. The final report, with a plethora of key recommendations has been presented to the government who are due to respond midway through 2021. It is expected they will take up Fiona’s recommendation to finally decimalise sex work across the state.
Fiona introduced the Drugs Poisons and Controlled Substances Amendment (Medically Supervised Injecting Centre) Bill to Parliament, and secured the first medically-supervised injecting centre (MSIC) in Victoria in July 2018. Following lobbying, a second Safe Injecting Room will open in Melbourne this year.
Reason has presented the Road Safety Amendment (Medicinal Cannabis) Bill to Parliament and advised the Medicinal Cannabis and Safe Driving Working Group, which was established to consider approaches on managing medicinal cannabis and safe driving in Victoria. This would mean that medicinal cannabis, when prescribed by a medical practitioner, would be treated in the same way as other prescription medication under the Road Safety Act.
Fiona was responsible for the Victorian laws that created Safe Access Zones around women’s reproductive health clinics. This initiative has been widely praised for the impact it has had on improving women’s medical privacy as well as access to reproductive health options.
Without a doubt one of Fiona’s crowning achievements has been the parliamentary inquiry she initiated that led to the introduction of Dying with Dignity laws in Victoria – an Australian first. Without Fiona’s dogged advocacy on this issue, Victorians would not have the compassionate choice they now do to end their lfe peacefully at a time of their own choosing.
Amongst her many awards, last year Fiona was proud to be named the Australian Humanist of the Year 2020.