During this period she continued with post-graduate research, having won two scholarships for PhD studies in psychology, and received the doctoral degree in 1983, for her dissertation Maternal Responses to Infant Crying.

[3] From 1983 until her election to parliament in 1986, Lawrence was employed in the Research and Evaluation Unit of the Psychiatric Services Branch of the Department of Health of Western Australia.

The Western Australian Labor government was in a state of crisis as a result of corruption allegations against the cabinets of two successive premiers, Brian Burke and Peter Dowding, the so-called "WA Inc" period.

Lawrence, a prominent opponent within the Labor Party of Brian Burke's Right faction, of which Dowding was a member, replaced him as Premier on 12 February 1990, with Ian Taylor as her deputy.

Between mid-1990 and early 1992, several high-speed chases involving cars stolen by repeat juvenile offenders resulted in the deaths of 10 people, including a businessman and several young parents.

On 25 December 1991, 22-year-old Margaret Blurton and her infant son Shane were killed in a crash involving Kingsley Arnold Pickett, a 14-year-old Aboriginal offender in a stolen motor vehicle.

Peter Blurton established the Margaret and Shane Foundation to channel both his own grief and the immense public sympathy into a workforce to fight for the rights of crime victims.

The other matter which preoccupied the Government was the ongoing construction of the Northern Suburbs Transit System, later to be known as the Joondalup line, which proceeded throughout Lawrence's term as Premier.

The Perth City Busport (now known as Elizabeth Quay Bus Station) was opened on 30 November 1991 to centralise services travelling through the central business district.

In the election held on 6 February 1993, the Lawrence government was defeated by the Liberal-National coalition and Richard Court, who had replaced Barry MacKinnon as opposition leader just a year earlier, became Premier.

In December 1993, Lawrence, Jim McGinty and Geoff Gallop joined in a petition to the High Court of Australia to challenge the franchise system for the Western Australian Legislative Council.

On 14 November 1995, the Royal Commission released a report which found that Lawrence had misled the Western Australian Parliament concerning her knowledge of and role in the tabling of the petition.

In September 2000 Beazley approved her reappointment to the Labor frontbench, and appointed her shadow minister for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Affairs, the Arts and Status of Women.

Although she did not win an absolute majority of the votes, Lawrence topped the poll and was elected president, taking office on 1 January 2004, shortly after Mark Latham succeeded Crean as party Leader.

Her brief was to conduct collaborative research with a focus on the origins of fanaticism and extreme behaviour, including terrorism, under the auspices of the university's Institute of Advanced Studies.

[12] In 2016 Lawrence became president of the Conservation Council of Western Australia,[13] and has campaigned against continuing sponsorship of major sporting clubs by companies involved in fossil fuel extraction.