[1] Her father abandoned the family when she was a small child and her mother remarried in the early 1950s.
She grew up in a rural area and her family "struggled with domestic violence, alcoholism and poverty".
[1] She later completed a Bachelor of Arts at Macquarie University as a mature-age student and began working in the community sector.
[1] During the election campaign she attracted attention for a gaffe in which she implied that the ALP's tax policies announced by opposition leader Mark Latham would need to be "adjusted".
[5] In 2006, McFarlane was investigated by the Department of Finance over allegations she had misused electoral entitlements to allow constituents to make long-distance calls.