Agatha Barbara, KUOM (11 March 1923 – 4 February 2002)[1] was a Maltese politician, having served as a Labour Member of Parliament and Minister.

Her father worked as a tug master (a skilled pilot of tugboats) for the Royal Navy, and was very poorly paid.

She had to work as an air raid warden and supervised one of the kitchens set up by the British military to feed the population.

She undertook comprehensive reforms: instituted compulsory full-time basic education for all children, established a teacher training college and special schools for the disabled, made secondary school free and provided science classes for both girls and boys.

Now compulsory basic education was extended from the age of 14 to 16, trade and technical schools were established and university fees were abolished.

She introduced a law on equal pay for women and men, paid maternity leave, a 40-hour working week and retirement and unemployment benefits.

[6] In 1981 elections led to a constitutional crisis because the Nationalist Party (PN) won a majority of the votes, but only got a minority in parliament: 31 seats against 34 for MLP.

At the end of her term in 1987, Barbara presided over the presentation and acceptance of the 1987 Constitutional reform, ranging from the cementing of Malta's independence from foreign powers, to the allocation of additional Parliamentary seats in case a Party obtains an absolute majority of votes at a general election without achieving a Parliamentary majority.

Maltese-Australian author Joseph Chetcuti claimed Barbara was a lesbian in his 2009 book on the LGBT history of Malta, based on interviews with her contemporaries.