The Australian Women's Register

Summary

Pat Giles commenced her working life as a nurse. After completing a Bachelor of Arts as a mature age student, she was an Organiser with the Hospital Employees Union of Western Australia from 1974 until 1981. In that year Giles was elected as an Australian Labor Party (ALP) Senator for Western Australia, and held the position for twelve years. During this time she was directly involved in the United Nations Decade for Women meetings, leading the government delegation to Nairobi in 1985.

Giles was a founding member and inaugural convenor of the Women’s Electoral Lobby (WEL) WA in 1973 and was the first woman on the executive of the West Australian Trades and Labour Council. She was a member, later Chairperson, of the first Australian Council of Trade Unions Women’s Committee. In 2004 Giles completed her third and final term as President of the International Alliance of Women. In 2010, she was appointed a Member of the Order of Australia.

Events

• 1983 - 1985

  Junior Vice-President of the ALP

• 1974 - 1981

  Organiser of the Hospital Employees’ Union WA

• 1953

  Married Keith Giles (FFARCS, FFAARCS) (diss. 1976), they had four daughters

• 1950

  Obtained Certificate in General Nursing

• 1951

  Obtained Certificate in Midwifery

• 1974

  Graduated with a BA from the University of Western Australia

• 1976 - 1979

  Member of the Administrative Committee for the ALP (WA)

• 1981

  Western Australian delegate to the ALP National Conference

• 1979

  First woman to argue an important general issue before the WA State Industrial Commission (Maternity Leave which was granted to women in private employment, January 1980)

• 1975

  First woman elected to the executive of the WA Trades & Labour Council

• 1975 - 1980

  Service industries representative on the WA Trades & Labour Council

• 1974

  First woman to chair a committee on Discrimination in Employment & Occupation

• 1978

  Member of the first ACTU Women’s Committee

• 1979 - 1981

  ACTU representative member of the first tripartite committee on women’s employment in Australia (sub-committee of the National Labour Consultative Committee on Women’s Employment)

• 1971 - 1974

  Vice-president of the WA Council of State School Organizations

• 1971 - 1981

  Executive member of the Health Education Council of WA

• 1978 - 1981

  Member of the Review Committee for the WA Legal Aid Commission

• 1973

  Inaugural convenor and member of WEL Perth

• 1975 - 1981

  Member of the Homeless Persons Advisory Committee in WA

• 2004

  Speaker at the 19th Mary Owen Dinner

• 1952

  Obtained Certificate in Infant Welfare

• 1995 - 1996

  Chaired the World Health Organisations’s Global Commission on Women’s Helath

• 1981 - 1993

  Sentator (ALP) for Western Australia

• 1986

  Temporary Chairman of Committees

• 1979 - 1981

  Member of the Community Advisory Committee in Industrial Relations for the University of WA