Grace Portolesi MP

Minister for Employment, Higher Education and Skills
Minister for Science and Information Economy

Grace is the member for Hartley, having won the seat at the 2006 state election.

Grace grew up in Adelaide as the youngest child of a large migrant Italian family.

In the early 1990s, Grace moved to Queensland where she worked as an adviser to then-Premier of Queensland Wayne Goss. She returned to Adelaide some years later and when Labor won government in 2002, she worked for then-Minister for Families and Community Services, Jay Weatherill.

Grace has been a vocal supporter of paid maternity leave, and established a select committee on work/life balance in her first year as the Member for Hartley. She dedicated her election in 2006 to 'working mums'.

In her first year in office she also introduced a private member's bill to protect patients' medical records after she was made aware that a landlord in her electorate was withholding 10,000 confidential records as part of a tenancy dispute. This bill was passed successfully.

Grace continues to work hard for the local community with recent campaigns to ensure the continuation of weekly rubbish collections, protests against the sale of the iconic Chelsea Cinema and lobbying for the installation of a pedestrian crossing on busy Lower North East Road, Campbelltown.

Grace is married with a young family and lives in Kensington Park.