Clare O’Neil is the first Loreto Mandeville Hall Toorak, indeed first Australian Loreto educated woman, to join the federal cabinet; she was made Minister for Home Affairs and Minister for Cyber Security in 2022. Clare has been committed to the value of justice throughout her professional life, working in a range of settings across Australia, always while remaining connected to her local community in Melbourne.

Clare began her schooling at Loreto Mandeville Hall Toorak in 1991 in Year 5, which marked the start of her lifelong, closest friendships. Loving her politics classes especially, Loreto was a significant part of shaping Clare’s social justice values which have underpinned all her career and life decisions since.

After completing her VCE in 1998 she studied Law and Arts at Monash University. Clare’s career began with her becoming the mayor of the Greater City of Dandenong in 2004.  As the youngest female mayor in Australian history, she set out on the path of community service and a lifelong engagement in politics. She went on to study in the USA at the Harvard Kennedy School as a Fulbright Scholar, completing a Masters of Public Policy. Returning to Australia, Clare consulted at McKinsey & Company in Melbourne, shaped public policy in Canberra and worked with local First Nations groups in north-east Arnhem Land. 

Clare joined the Australian Labor Party at the age of 16. In 2013 she was elected to Federal Parliament as the ALP Member for Hotham – with her eight-week-old baby in her arms. In a 2018 letter to her newborn son, she reflected on the experience of taking part in an election campaign at that time and the motivation she drew upon to say yes to the opportunity she was given;

“From a distance, most people see politics as all posturing and pantomime. Up close, politics is deeply meaningful and inspiring. You think about the people you know who desperately need change to be made. The Indigenous families you worked with in Arnhem Land, who lived 10-people to a two-bedroom house, who had lost hope that the government would ever be there for them, if they ever believed it to begin with. The dairy farmers in your family, who do backbreaking work but still struggle to survive, the rural communities they love in decay. The baby you fostered, and how she deserves a chance at living a better life than her parents. In politics, you will have the power to do something to help them”. (Sydney Morning Herald)

When the Labor Party was elected in 2022, Clare became the youngest Cabinet Minister in the Albanese Labor Government and was appointed as the Minister for Home Affairs and Cyber Security. While her work takes her to all parts of the country and overseas, Clare is happiest living in and exploring Melbourne’s South East, with her husband Brendan, three kids, two dogs and four chickens.