She is also noted as an originator in Western Australia of NAATI-accredited level 2 (paraprofessional) courses in translation and interpreting, and as a campaigner for human rights and preservation of built heritage.

Jean Jenkins (née Elliott) was born in Bristol, England, and brought up in the village of Mumbles, Swansea, Wales, by adoptive parents Daniel and Blanche Jones.

Continuous media exposure hastened the capitulation of premier Brian Burke and his withdrawal of the demolition proposal at a meeting with the Castle Keepers' leader Jean Jenkins.

[7][8] As a member of the very active small team of Australian Democrats senators led by Janine Haines, Jenkins was immediately thrust into the limelight as a national spokesperson on, inter alia, immigration and multicultural ethnic affairs, Territory affairs including a fierce battle for use of the Hare-Clark method for the ACT electoral system, and a range of other controversial legislation on war crimes, X-rated videos and questionable revenue-raising measures of the then Hawke Labor administration.

[9][10] She regularly employed the Senate's Adjournment debate to criticise and publicise extensive human rights abuses including Aboriginal deaths in custody and the post-war child-migration scandals (simultaneously raised in the UK by Margaret Humphreys).

Her final parliamentary initiative was an unsuccessful private senator's bill seeking to establish a national register of foreign ownership of Australian business and real estate.

[11] At the 1990 election, she polled 9.7% including the highest personal 'below the line'[12] vote for any candidate, but was denied essential preferences by the major parties which her frankness had alienated, and she was defeated.