Karin Sowada - Appointment To The Senate

Appointment To The Senate

By 1990, Sowada had graduated from university and was working as an archaeologist, having taken several trips to the Middle East. She remained active in the party, however, and served as the Democrat campaign manager for the 1988 NSW State election and minor by-elections. Sowada then shifted her attention to the Senate, and managed to gain second place on the New South Wales Senate ticket for the 1990 election, behind Vicki Bourne. However, minor parties rarely achieve more than one Senate quota per state, and Sowada had virtually no chance of being elected.

Having failed in four bids for public office, Sowada had little expectation of serving in federal politics by 1991. She was undertaking a postgraduate degree at the University of Sydney and married her fiancé, Democrat staffer Armon Hicks in July, 1991. Five weeks later, however, a casual Senate vacancy arose for which she was nominated by the party. Prominent anti-nuclear campaigner Helen Caldicott had also sought the position but party rules favoured Karin since she had been No. 2 candidate at the preceding Senate election. She was, at the time, the youngest female senator in history (a distinction which later passed to Natasha Stott Despoja).

Her accession to the Senate was a direct consequence of the ambush of leader Janet Powell by the Democrats' national executive and party room, leading to her replacement by John Coulter. The senator for NSW, Paul McLean had resigned his seat in disgust after Coulter's speech condemning the performance of his leader. It was also reported that Cheryl Kernot (the alleged architect of the coup) believed she had an understanding with McLean that he would back her for the deputy's post. "Instead he quit politics altogether, concluding after the campaign against Powell that he did not have enough of the jugular instinct."