The Australian Women's Register

Patricia Staunton was a Member of the NSW Legislative Council from 25 March 1995 to 2 September 1997. She is a member of the Australian Labor Party, a Member of the Order of Australia (AM) and has worked as a Chief Magistrate, Alderman of the Sydney City Council and Registered Nurse.

After working as a teacher, and small business person and being active in community services and local charity, Janelle Saffin stood unsuccessfully for the seat of Lismore (New South Wales Legislative Assembly) in 1991. However in 1995 she was elected to the Legislative Council of the New South Wales Parliament and remained in office until 2003. In 2007 she was elected to the House of Representatives of the Australian Parliament as the Member for Page, New South Wales and was re-elected in 2010, but was defeated the 2013 election. She joined the Australian Labor Party in 1982 and held senior positions in her local branch. Janelle was a delegate to Country and State conferences and was a member of the Corrective Services Advisory Council. She was also President of the North Coast Breast Screening Program and a committee member of the Northern Rivers Social Development Council.

She is married to Jim Saffin, and has one son and three stepsons. Janelle Saffin completed a Dip Prim T (Northern Rivers CAE), BLegalStud (Macq), and Mbus.

Terri Richardson is a hard working party member of the Australian Democrats, deeply committed to a just society, and passionate on the subject of Indigenous education. Terri was on the State Executive Committee of the Australian Democrats for nine years, 1989-1998, and continues her connection with the party as Acting Convenor of the Cook Electorate branch. She also contested the following elections on their behalf:
New South Wales Legislative Assembly, Cronulla, 1991
House of Representatives, Cook, 1990, 1993, 1996, 1998
New South Wales, Legislative Council, 1994.

Terri Richardson grew up in the Sutherland Shire and was educated at Oyster Bay Primary School and St George Girls’ High School. She trained as a primary school teacher at the Alexander Mackie College of Advanced Education and taught for 15 years. Subsequently she was a tutor at the Centre for Australian Indigenous Studies at the University of Technology, Sydney. In 2005, still passionate about the education of indigenous children, she was actively involved in the Indigenous Tutorial Assistance Scheme. She was also part way through a Masters of Professional Studies: Aboriginal Studies from the University of New England. She has one daughter.

In 1927 Susan Francis stood as a Labor candidate in the New South Wales Legislative Assembly elections for Bondi. She then stood as a Lang Labor candidate in the Waverley Municipal Council elections of 1932.

From working at the meatworks of Qeerah, Queensland, Rose Colless went on to be Queensland Commissioner for Aborigines and manage a centre for the rehabilitation of alcoholics before being presented with an Order of Australia Medal and an Australian human rights award.

Jenny Pryor is a Bindal clan member of the Birri Gubba nation and Kaanju people. She has been a Commissioner with the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission for North Queensland, holding the portfolio of infrastructure, housing, land and natural resources. For eight years she held the position of Administrator of the Northern Queensland Aboriginal and Islander Child Care Agency in Townsville, and has been associated with the Secretariat of National Aboriginal and Islander Child Care (SNAICC) since its inception in the early 1980s.

Pryor retains strong ties with the Palm Island community where her mother was born.

Cheryl Buchanan studied at the University of Hawaii as a scholarship-holder. Upon her return to Australia she became involved in the Brisbane Tribal Council, and attended the University of Queensland.

During 1974 Buchanan worked as the race relations field director for the Australian Union of Students and spent several months visiting communities in the Northern Territory and Western Australia, encouraging their struggle for land rights. In 1975 she moved to Melbourne, Victoria, where she became director of the Black Resources Centre (BRC). The Centre later moved to Brisbane, and Cheryl became one of the principal campaigners for the acquittal of ‘The Brisbane Three’, two Aboriginal men and a Chilean charged with conspiracy over an alleged extortion attempt. The three were acquitted due partly to the support of BRC periodical Black Liberation from 1975 to 1977. Buchanan was one of the main contributors to this publication, writing articles on a range of issues including history, politics, education, land rights, prisons and welfare.

In 1980 she published Kargun, the first of a series of poetry volumes by Lionel Fogarty. This publication led to the development of Murrie Coo-ee, an Aboriginal publishing firm at Coominya which continues to operate under Buchanan’s directorship.

Shireen Malamoo is an Aboriginal community worker who advocates a holistic approach to indigenous issues. In the 1970s she worked for the Department of Social Security in Townsville, Queensland. Her involvement with the Secretariat of National Aboriginal and Islander Child Care included membership of the Finance Committee. She was a Commissioner of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission (ATSIC) from 1991 to 1993.

In 1972 Pat Eatock became the first Aboriginal to stand for Federal Parliament in the Australian Capital Territory (ACT). She participated in the Aboriginal Embassy and Women’s Liberation in 1972. In 1973 she became the first non-matriculated mature aged student at the Australian National University(ANU), graduating as a Bachelor of Arts in 1977. In 1975 she attended the 1975 Women in Politics Conference and the International Women’s Year World Conference in Mexico City. She has worked as a public servant, university lecturer, and established and managed the Perleeka Aboriginal Television, producing films for community television and training Aboriginal film makers from 1992-96. Pat Eatock passed away on 17 March, 2015 after a long period of ill health.

Penny Tripcony was born in Brisbane in 1942 and moved to Melbourne in the mid-1960s. She completed a Bachelor of Arts degree at the University of Melbourne in 1975, and a Diploma of Education the following year.

As the administrator of the Aboriginal Cooperative Ltd in Melbourne, she was instrumental in establishing the Aboriginal Housing Board of Victoria and several other Aboriginal organisations. In the early 1980s she was a Research Officer with the Board before becoming superintendent of Victorian Aboriginal Education Services. She was involved with many community-based Aboriginal organisations in Victoria, and tutored in the Aboriginal Community Organisation course at the Swinburne Institute of Technology.

In 1989, Tripcony returned to Brisbane to become Principal Policy Officer (Aboriginal and Torres Strait islander Education) with the state Department of Education. She was also a member of the National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies Project.

Roberta (Bobbi) Sykes was born and brought up in Townsville, Queensland. She left school at 14 and trained as a nurse. In 1971 she moved to Sydney, and in 1972 helped establish the Aboriginal Tent Embassy in Canberra. She worked as Education and Publicity Officer for the newly founded Aboriginal Medical Service in Redfern, and began a ten-year career as a freelance journalist. She has written poetry and film reviews, and contributed to contemporary discussions on a wide range of indigenous issues.

From 1975 to 1980 Bobbi Sykes was an adviser on Aboriginal health and education to the New South Wales Health Commission, following which she moved to the United States and completed her doctorate on Aboriginal education at Harvard University. Upon her return to Sydney, she continued writing and lecturing. She has held appointments at Charles Sturt and Macquarie universities and has worked as a consultant.

Thancoupie was born at Napranum in Queensland, on the land traditionally occupied by her ancestors. Her father was killed in war. Thancoupie attended the local school before being sent to Brisbane to train as a preschool teacher. Upon her return to Napranum she established a preschool but was unhappy with the situation and resigned.

Thancoupie began writing down and illustrating (with paintings on bark) stories her grandmother had taught her, and had a number of exhibitions of her work. Her application to study at a Sydney art school was rejected because she lacked formal qualifications, however she came across a pottery school which accepted her as a student. Thancoupie then went to America and Mexico and worked with indigenous potters. This helped her develop her own style, and she has since been creating pots and tile murals at her studio in Cairns where she moved in 1976, after the Comalco mining company refused to allow her a house at Napranum because she had left the community. Thancoupie still visits her hometown on a regular basis.

Cherry O’Keefe was an excellent horsewoman with a leading knowledge of the Ngawun language.

Isabelle Procter was born in Cairns, Queensland. Her family moved to Darwin, where she completed her schooling before training in Perth as an early childhood teacher. She taught in preschools and primary schools in Western Australia. Later, she tutored in tertiary institutions, and worked as a curriculum officer, project coordinator and educational consultant whilst completing Bachelor of Arts, Bachelor of Education and Master of Education degrees at Murdoch University.

Procter has written widely on Aboriginal literacy and preschool education, and has worked on many project teams and committees. She was responsible for producing an Aboriginal employment and training management plan for the Western Australian Department of Conservation and Land Management; a study of community education for disadvantaged consumers for the Western Australian Ministry of Consumer Affairs; and a strategy for achieving social justice through Aboriginal education for the state’s Ministry of Education. She helped write the National Aboriginal Education Committee’s policy guidelines in 1989, and served as a member of Murdoch University’s Aboriginal studies management committee, and the Western Australian Ministry of Education’s Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander career and employment working party. She chaired the AIATSIS research advisory committee and the Western Australian government’s Aboriginal Advisory Council.

Procter’s varied career has also seen her work as a Western Australian Ministry of Education district superintendent, responsible for 41 government schools and preschools in the south Perth district.

In 1979, Gracia Baylor became the first woman member of the Liberal Party to be elected to the Victorian Legislative Council when she was electedthe member for Boronia. That year, she was one of the first two women to be elected to the Upper House, the other being Joan Coxsedge of the Australian Labor Party. Baylor held her seat until 1985 when she resigned to contest (unsucessfully) the Legislative Assembly seat of Warrandyte.

Elsie Roughsey (Labumore), of Lardil descent, was born on Mornington Island in Queensland. She was taken from her parents and placed in the local mission school at the age of eight. She stayed there until World War Two, not knowing that her own brother and sister were living in the same dormitory. When the missionaries were evacuated during the war, she returned to her family and lived in the bush learning Lardil customs.

In 1946 Elsie married Dick Roughsey, then a stockman but later an artist and author. She worked as a nursing aide, teacher’s assistant and voluntary community worker on Mornington Island.

In 1984 she published her autobiography, which became a best seller, and her visits to southern capitals to promote it attracted widespread media interest. She was an authority on the local history of Mornington Island and a famed maker of cottonwood dolls.

Justine Saunders was a member of the stolen generations of Aboriginal people. She became a professional actor in 1974 and was important to the establishment of Aboriginal theatre groups in the 1980s and 1990s.

Lorna Schrieber (Balurr Wuppi), a descendant of the Gungganyji group of Yidinjdji people, was brought up in the girls dormitory between the ages of ten and sixteen, until 1942, when Yarrabah parents successfully appealed to the bishop of north Queensland to allow their children to live at home.

Lorna married Steven Schrieber, who became Yarrabah overseer while she worked in the welfare clinic. They moved to Cairns to give their children better schooling opportunities. They were given a large government house and fostered Aboriginal children from the outback who could then attend school.

In 1977, at the insistence of her people, Lorna was anointed Queen of Yarrabah by the bishop of north Queensland. She was one of the last Gungganyji speakers and custodians, and helped record traditional songs and stories. She paid regular visits to Yarrabah, encouraging children to speak the language and preserve the knowledge of their ancestors.

Gracelyn Smallwood, of Biri descent, was born and grew up in Townsville, Queensland. She obtained general nursing, midwifery and psychiatric nursing certificates from the Townsville hospital. She helped establish the Townsville Aboriginal Medical Service before working for a year as a volunteer among remote Aboriginal communities. In the 1970s and 1980s she studied indigenous health services in the United States and China. Upon her return to Australia, she worked for the national trachoma and eye health program, and the Pitjantjatjara council in northern South Australia. In 1985 she became matron of the Hetti Perkins home for the aged in Alice Springs.

Smallwood continued her studies, enrolling in a Master of Science degree at James Cook University in Queensland. She was appointed adviser on indigenous health to the federal Minister of Health, and has since become a leading commentator on AIDS among Aboriginal communities.

In 1989 Smallwood became the proprietor of ‘Birri’s Walkabout’, an outlet for Aboriginal arts and crafts at the Townsville airport. In 1991 she was a founding member of the advisory committee formed to guide the Aboriginal and Islander Health Worker journal.

Maudie Naylon was the last fluent speaker of the Ngamini and Yarluyandi languages.

Tracey Moffatt is an internationally renowned Aboriginal photographer, documentary maker and director. Moffatt’s photography is reflected in her films and documentaries, which explore Aboriginal culture by confronting commonly held stereotypes.

Tracey Moffatt was born in 1960 in Brisbane, where she graduated from the Queensland College of Arts. Her debut film, Nice Coloured Girls, won the Most Innovative Film award at the 1988 Festival of Australian Film and Video. At the same festival, she won the Best New Australian Video award for her 5-minute Aboriginal and Islander dance video, Watch Out. Moffatt also produced Moodeitj Yorgas, which includes interviews, dances, and storytelling by Western Australian Aboriginal women. Her film Night Cries: A Rural Tragedy (1990) draws from the 1955 Chauvel film Jedda.

Moffatt’s photographic exhibitions include “Some Lads” and “Something More”.

Jeanie Bell is a linguist and educator who has lived and worked in Queensland, Victoria and the Northern Territory. Over the course of her career Bell has made an extraordinary contribution to the development of Aboriginal education within the tertiary sector, and to the preservation of Aboriginal linguistic heritage.

Maroochy Barambah is a distinguished indigenous musician whose career since the 1970s has spanned the genres of jazz, rock, musical theatre and classical opera.

Jessie Shillingsworth, of Margany descent, was born at Beechal Creek, north of Eulo in southwest Queensland. As a girl, she lived at Guwany-Mungarie camp, near the present Bundoona station. She married Arthur Shillingsworth and raised four sons and two daughters.

Jessie was the last person to have extensive knowledge of the language and culture of her people. She had not spoken her language for forty years prior to 1967, when she was first asked about it. She subsequently contributed many words to the grammar of her language published by Hazel McKellar in 1984. Jessie was also strongly opposed to the alcohol that was causing such damage to her people.

A lobby group that promotes women’s sexual and reproductive health choices in relation to unplanned pregnancy, Children by Choice (CbyC) was established in 1972 as an offshoot of the Queensland branch of the Abortion Law Reform Association (ALRA), to offer family planning advice and counselling to women confronted by the reality of an unplanned pregnancy. At this time, legislation dating back to 1899 criminalised abortion and most Queensland women had to travel interstate to obtain one. This legal reality led to staff at CbyC expanding their range of activities to include offering counselling and medical referral services to doctors at St Anne’s Hospital in Sydney. By 1975 CbyC had developed a package deal with Ansett Airlines and Population Services International (PSI) to help women to travel to Sydney for abortions. It was not the original intention for CbyC to become an abortion referral service, but this became the Association’s best known activity at that early point in its history.

Despite having bricks thrown through the windows of their premises and their funding slashed periodically throughout the last three decades, CbyC have continued to provide essential counselling services to the women of Queensland. ‘The survival of Children by Choice has been a story of struggle and sacrifice.’

Monica Clare was the daughter of an Aboriginal shearer and an English women who died in childbirth when Monica was two years old. Taken into care at the age of seven, she and her brother grew up in a variety of foster homes in Sydney. After learning the finer arts of domestic service, Monica went out to work as a waitress and a factory hand.

In the 1950s, Monica became interested in Labor Politics. Her second husband, the trade unionist Leslie Clare, encouraged this interest and also encouraged her to be active in Aboriginal politics. She became the Secretary of the Aborigines Committee of the South Coast at Wollongong during the 1960s and, subsequently, of an Aboriginal committee called the South Coast Illawarra Tribe, from 1968 to 1973.

Monica Clare worked tirelessly for the political and social equality of Aboriginal people, and their independence. She died suddenly on National Aborigines Day, 13 July 1973.

Catherine (Cathy) Freeman was born in Mackay in Queensland in 1973. As a very good runner, she won a scholarship to boarding school where she was able to have professional coaching. In 1994 she became the first Aboriginal sprinter to win a gold medal at the Commonwealth Games, going on to win a silver medal in the 1996 Olympic Games and then gold at the Sydney Olympics in 2000.

She is very proud of her Aboriginal heritage and has carried the Australian and Aboriginal flags around the track after winning a race, which at times has resulted in public controversy.

She was made Young Australian of the Year in 1990 and Australian of the Year in 1998. She is the first person to receive both awards.