Helena Carr

Helena Carr is a Malaysian-born Australian businesswoman and the wife of former Premier of New South Wales, and current Senator and Foreign Minister Bob Carr.

Early life
She was born Anne Helena John in Perak, Malaysia, the youngest of six children. In 1965, she came to Sydney to study at Our Lady of Mercy College, Parramatta. As economics was one of her strongest subjects, she majored in economics at the University of Sydney.

Carr joined Leigh Mardon in 1976, first as market research officer and then as product manager. She left in 1981 to join Amatil before returning to Leigh Mardon as business development manager and then division manager.

Marriage and politics
In 1972, she met Bob Carr on a vacation in Tahiti and the two were married on 24 February 1973.

Bob Carr became Federal President of Young Labor shortly after. Helena Carr started a successful business career and by the 1980s, she was the Managing Director of Leigh Marden, a subsidiary of Coca-Cola Amatil. In 1992, her bid to buy Offset Alpine for a sum approaching A$15 million was unsuccessful, losing out to a syndicate headed by Rene Rivkin.

She and Max Turner later bought Merritt Madden Printing and Advanced Graphics, a commercial printer producing prospectuses, annual reports, and trade magazines. In October 2004, she and Turner sold the business to the New Zealand company Blue Star Print Group.

On 29 July 2005 Helena Carr was described by NSW Opposition Leader John Brogden as Bob Carr's "mail order bride". Brogden subsequently apologised for the slur and resigned from the leadership on 29 August 2005. He attempted suicide on the following day.