Both sides of politics supported the move which comes 59 years after former Dubbo resident Jean Lee made headlines as the last woman hanged in Australia.

Lee went to the gallows at Pentridge prison on February 19, 1951 for her part in a murder.

She was born in an unassuming house in Bourke Street, North Dubbo on December 10, 1919, the fifth and youngest child of railway ganger Charles Wright and his wife Florence (nee Peacock). Her name was registered as Marjorie Jean Maude Wright.

Lee attended Sunday school and the Presbyterian Church until age nine when her family left Dubbo.

Described in court reports as an attractive 31-year-old redhead, Lee had been intelligent but rebellious in her youth.

After leaving school early she worked in a series of dead-end jobs before marrying Raymond Thomas Brees at age 18. Their daughter was born in April 1939.

From the beginning the marriage was strained and the couple divorced in April 1949.

As a single mother, Jean Brees found it difficult to make ends meet. Increasingly she became caught in a cycle of poverty, petty crime and prostitution in Sydney and Brisbane, using numerous aliases, among them ‘Jean Lee’.

In 1943 she had begun an association with Morris Dias, a criminal who managed her earnings from prostitution. Three years later she met Robert David Clayton, a con man and gambler with whom she formed an enduring, if violent, relationship.

Between May 1945 and July 1948 she appeared 23 times at Sydney’s Central Police Court, mostly on charges of offensive behaviour.

In October 1949 Lee travelled to Melbourne with Clayton, who had just been released from jail. There they teamed up with another criminal, Norman Andrews. The three committed minor offences which brought them into further conflict with the law.

On November 8 a 73-year-old, part-time bookmaker William (‘Pop’) Kent was found murdered in the front room of his house in Dorrit Street, Carlton. The police alleged that Clayton, Andrews and Lee had accompanied Kent to his home, bashed him, tortured him to find where he had hidden his money, and finally strangled him.

Angry and bitter about the charge, Lee pleaded innocence and insisted she was an onlooker rather than an active participant in the crime.

On March 25 1950, after a long and dramatic trial in the Supreme Court, the three were found guilty of murder and sentenced to death.

They appealed and were granted a retrial but the High Court overturned the ruling and reinstated the convictions.

Lee became the first woman to be hanged in Victoria since 1895. She was heavily sedated and collapsed after seeing the hangman and his assistant - both goggled and wearing felt hats.

A doctor examined Lee and found her to be unconscious. The execution continued and a white hood was placed over Lee’s head, her arms and legs were pinioned. Lee was carried to the gallows and placed on a chair.

Her head drooped to her chest and the executioner had to pull it back in order to adjust the noose correctly.

At a signal from the sheriff the executioner stood back from the trap and pulled the lever.

Two hours later Clayton and Andrews, both mildly sedated, shared the same fate.

In 1967, Ronald Ryan was the last man hanged in Australia.