Helen Lloyd Coonan (born 29 October 1947) is a former Australian politician who was a Senator for New South Wales from 1996 to 2011, representing the Liberal Party.

She was re-elected in 2001 and appointed Minister for Revenue and Assistant Treasurer (2001–04), making her the first woman to hold an Australian Treasury portfolio since Federation.

Her portfolio was responsible for overseeing the Australian broadcasting and telecommunications industries as well as the ICT sector and Australia Post.

The plan to switch off analogue TV by 2008 in metropolitan areas and by 2011 in regional markets was regarded as unlikely to be workable because the take-up of digital receivers had been poor.

[9] In October 2005, Coonan released a plan for a staged rollout of Digital Audio Broadcasting using the Eureka-147 technology, starting in metropolitan areas.

As part of the program, the government also established NetAlert—which Senator Harradine is well aware of—to help children and families use and enjoy the Internet in a safe and responsible way.

[14] It represented a change from her 2006 policy to allow the ISP to remain a neutral carrier and encourage parents to install filters on their home PCs, commenting at the time that "PC-based filtering remains the most effective way of protecting children from offensive Internet content, as well as other threats that are not addressed by Labor's ISP-filtering proposals.

When Malcolm Turnbull defeated Brendan Nelson in a leadership ballot in September 2008, Coonan was appointed Manager of Opposition Business in the Senate and was elevated to the prestigious position of Shadow Minister for Foreign Affairs.

[20] She is also a member of the advisory council of investment bank J.P. Morgan & Co., a trustee of the Sydney Opera House Trust, chair of the Conservation Council of the Opera House Trust, co-chair of GRACosway and a non-executive director of Obesity Australia Limited.