| Fiona Patten | |
| Office: | Leader of Reason Australia |
| Predecessor: | Herself (as Leader of the Australian Sex Party) |
| Party: | Reason Australia (since 2009) |
| Office3: | Member of the Victorian Legislative Council for Northern Metropolitan |
| Birth Name: | Fiona Heather Patten |
| Birth Place: | Canberra, Australian Capital Territory, Australia |
| Otherparty: | Hare-Clark Independent (1991–1992) Independent (1992–2009) |
| Residence: | Melbourne, Australia |
| Education: | Hawker College |
| Alma Mater: | University of Canberra |
| Occupation: | Chief executive officer (eros association) fashion designer (body politics) |
| Profession: | Lobbyist Businesswoman Politician Former sex worker |
| Term Start3: | 29 November 2014 |
| Term End3: | 26 November 2022 |
| Predecessor3: | Matthew Guy |
| Term Start: | (as Reason Party) 29 January 2018 |
| Term Start2: | (as Australian Sex Party) 5 December 2009 |
| Term End2: | 24 November 2017 |
| Predecessor2: | Party established |
| Successor2: | Herself (as Leader of the Australian Reason Party) |
| Office4: | President of the Eros Association |
| Term Start4: | 21 November 1992 |
| Term End4: | 23 November 2014 |
| Predecessor4: | Organisation established |
| Successor4: | David Watt |
| Office5: | Director of the National Museum of Erotica |
| Term Start5: | 1 March 2001 |
| Predecessor5: | Institution established |
Fiona Heather Patten (born May 1964) is an Australian former politician. She was the leader of Reason Australia (also known as the Reason Party) and was a member of the Victorian Legislative Council between 2014 and 2022, representing the Northern Metropolitan Region until she lost her seat at the 2022 state election.
Patten established the Australian Sex Party in 2009 to focus on personal freedoms after deep frustration with stagnation on censorship, freedom, marriage equality and drug law reform. On 22 August 2017, it was announced that the Australian Sex Party would be changing its name to the Reason Party.[1] [2] [3]
Before entering politics, Patten was the CEO of Australia's national adult industry association, Eros Association. She championed sexual rights and health movements for more than 20 years, particularly on HIV/AIDS, after initially starting out as a small business owner with her own fashion label.
During her time as a Victorian MP, Patten has been credited for playing pivotal roles in achieving social reforms in Victoria, with examples including the passage of Victoria's assisted dying legislation, the trial of a medically supervised drug injecting room in Richmond, relaxing laws for ride-share companies such as Uber and establishing buffer zones for abortion clinics to keep protesters away from patients and staff.[4] [5]
According to The Age, between November 2018 and November 2021, Patten voted with the Andrews Government's position 74.3% of the time, the second-most of any Legislative Council crossbencher, behind only Andy Meddick of the Animal Justice Party.[6]
In March 2024, Patten announced that she was deregistering Reason Australia and ending her political career.[7]
Patten was born in Canberra, Australian Capital Territory, the daughter of Colin Richard Lloyd "Rick" Patten, an Australian naval officer, and his wife Anne, a Scottish-born public servant who worked for a government-owned telecommunications company.
Rick and Anne Patten had met in Scotland, where the former had been posted, and after her birth Patten spent parts of her childhood in the United Kingdom and the United States, in concert with her father's postings. Patten has a younger sister and a younger brother.
Patten received her primary education overseas. She excelled in sport and took particular interest in swimming. Upon returning to Australia with her family in 1978, Patten attended Hawker College in Canberra where she studied Mathematics, Physics, Chemistry, Industrial Arts, Technical Drawing, Landscape Design and Environmental Studies. She went on to study Landscape Architecture and Industrial Design at the University of Canberra. She later graduated with qualifications in fashion design and started her own fashion label, Body Politics. The first boutique was opened in Yarralumla in the late 1980s, where she sold her own fashion creations as well as the designs of colleagues in Sydney. During the early 1990s recession in Australia, interest in Patten's expensive collection was received largely from workers in the sex industry.
Patten started her career with her company Body Politics. With her large clientele of sex workers, Patten became interested in sex workers' rights, eventually joining Workers in Sex Employment (WISE), a lobbying group, to inform at-risk members of the population about the emerging threat of HIV/AIDS. Patten was employed as an outreach speaker and would once a week visit brothels to teach the women about safe sex.
From 1990 to 1992, Patten was a sex worker herself. Her initial encounter began at Tiffany's Palace in Canberra, where she had intercourse with a client when another worker was unavailable.
Patten eventually lost interest in her work, which had also interfered with her social and professional life. After working as a female escort in Cairns, Queensland, Patten quit sex work in 1992 and continued in sex education.