[2] She received her secondary education at Mitcham High School, and studied teaching (BA 1978, Dip Ed 1979) at Monash University.
[citation needed] When Carbines won Labor pre-selection to make a second run for office - this time for the Legislative Council seat of Geelong Province in the lead-up to the 1999 state election, the campaign against both developments became a key part of her platform.
As a member of the Parliamentary Friends of Tibet Group, Carbines was among those who put their names to an advertisement taken out by the Australia-Tibet Council during a visit to Australia by Chinese President Hu Jintao in 2003.
[citation needed] Rumours began circulating as early as 2004 that Carbines would face a challenge to her preselection for the 2006 state election due to factional manoeuvring, with local media reporting in October 2005 that she was facing the prospect of being placed in an unwinnable position on the Labor Party's ticket for the newly-created Western Victoria Region.
[5] Currently, she is the Deputy Chair of Ports Victoria, G-Force Recruitment and Barwon Water and a Director of Northern Futures and AWA Alliance Bank.