The Australian Women's Register

Dr Katy Le Roy is Parliamentary Counsel in the New Zealand Parliamentary Counsel Office. An expert in constitutional law, federalism, governance and Pacific legal systems, she has undertaken a number of consultancies for the United Nations Development Program. Le Roy was formerly Consultant Legal Counsel and Parliamentary Counsel for Nauru.

Katy Le Roy was interviewed by Kim Rubenstein for the Trailblazing Women and the Law Oral History Project. For details of the interview see the National Library of Australia CATALOGUE RECORD.

Professor Verity Burgmann is a leading Australian political scientist who has taught in Europe and Australia. She was the first female professor at Melbourne University’s School of Social and Political Sciences and has been active in the Women’s Caucus of the Australian Political Studies Association from its early days. She has a long history of radical political activism, including for Aboriginal land rights, the anti-Apartheid movement, female prisoners’ rights, the Public Education Group and environmental groups. Verity is currently Adjunct Professor of Political Science in the School of Social Sciences at Monash University, and Honorary Professorial Fellow in the eScholarship Research Centre at the University of Melbourne.

Read more about Verity Burgmann in our sister publication The Encyclopedia of Women and Leadership in Twentieth-Century Australia.

Read more about Frederica (Rica) Erickson in our sister publication The Encyclopedia of Women and Leadership in Twentieth-Century Australia.

Flos Greig was a remarkable pioneer whose determination to practise as a solicitor advanced gender equality in the legal profession in Australia in the early twentieth century. The first woman to be admitted to legal practice in Australia, Greig was at the vanguard of ‘the graceful incoming of a revolution’ as described by then Chief Justice Sir John Madden, as he presided over the ceremony granting her admission to the Victorian bar in August 1905 (The Advertiser, 1905).

Read more about Flos Greig in our sister publication The Encyclopedia of Women and Leadership in Twentieth-Century Australia.

Patti Chong is a Perth based legal practitioner with thirty-five years experience in both private and public practice. Born and educated in Batu Pahat, in the state of Johore, Malaysia, she came to Perth in 1973, studied law at the University of Western Australia and graduated in 1979 with a Bachelor of Jurisprudence and a Bachelor of Laws in 1980. She was the only Chinese woman in her class, one of only four women in total. In 2006 she established her own practice, working in a wide variety of areas. She has a commitment to mentoring young lawyers and legal students.

Patti Chong was interviewed by Nikki Henningham in the Trailblazing Women and the Law Oral History Project. For details of the interview see the National Library of Australia CATALOGUE RECORD.

The Honourable Justice Annabelle Bennett AO was appointed a Judge of the Federal Court of Australia in 2003. She is also an additional judge of the Supreme Court of the ACT. Prior to joining the bench of the Federal Court, she was a barrister and then Senior Counsel specialising in intellectual property law. She was appointed an Officer of the Order of Australia in 2005. In July 2011 her Honour was awarded the honorary degree of Doctor of the University by the ANU.

Justice Bennett completed her BSc (Hons) and PhD in Biochemistry (the latter in the Faculty of Vet Science) at Sydney University and later obtained her law degree at the University of New South Wales. Her interest in biological sciences has led to membership of the Genetic Manipulation Advisory Committee, the Biotechnology Task Force, the Pharmacy Board of New South Wales and the Eastern Sydney Area Health Service. She is a member of several other boards and tribunals.

Elected a Global Leader of Tomorrow by the World Economic Forum, Audette Exel is a founder of the Adara Group, established in 1998, and Chief Executive Officer of its Australian private placement and corporate advisory business, Adara Advisors. A qualified lawyer, she has used her knowledge of corporate law to establish not for profit businesses that help to generate wealth for women and children in developing nations.

Her business success has seen her recognised with multiple awards over the years. She was the recipient of the Economic Justice and Community Impact Award from the Young Presidents Organisation Social Enterprise Networks in 2010. In 2012, Exel won the Telstra 2012 NSW Commonwealth Bank Business Owner Award, and she was the winner of the 2012 NSW Telstra Business Woman of the Year Award. She was also one of The Australian Financial Review’s 100 Women of Influence in Australia in 2012. In 2013, Exel was awarded an honorary Order of Australia for ‘service to humanity through the establishment of the Adara Group to provide specialist care to women and children in Uganda and Nepal’ and was recognised by Forbes as a ‘Hero of Philanthropy’ in 2014.

The Victorian Ombudsman, Deborah Glass, left Monash University Law School in the early 1980s, never imagining that thirty years later she would be honoured with an OBE for her services to law and order. A law graduate who hasn’t practised since 1984, with the benefit of hindsight she nevertheless saw the legal training she received as a valuable foundation for supporting the various twists and turns her career has taken over the last thirty years.

After graduating in 1982, Deborah Glass began her professional career as a lawyer based in Melbourne, but relocated to Switzerland to work for Citicorp, a US Investment Bank. She then transferred into the financial regulation sector, pursuing a career with the Hong Kong Securities and Futures Commission. Returning to Europe, she was appointed Chief Executive of the Investment Management Regulatory Organisation in 1998. Under her stewardship it was successfully subsumed into the London based Financial Services Authority. She also worked as an Independent custody visitor, someone who visits people who are detained in police stations in the United Kingdom to ensure that they are being treated properly, between 1999 and 2005.

Between 2001 and 2004 she was a member of the Police Complaints Authority, and it was from here that she was appointed to the Independent Police Complaints Commission in London. At the IPCC she was responsible, among other things, for many high profile criminal and misconduct investigations and decisions involving the police. These included decisions in relation to the police response to the phone-hacking affair and the decision to launch an independent investigation into the aftermath of the Hillsborough football stadium disaster.

She was awarded an OBE for services to the IPCC in 2012. She left the IPCC in March 2014, having completed a ten year term with the organization and returned to Melbourne to take up the position of Victorian Ombudsman. She is the first woman to ever hold the position

Go to ‘Details’ below to read a reflective essay written by Deborah Glass for the Trailblazing Women and the Law Project.

Frances Alice Robinson served in Egypt, France and England and on hospital transports nursing soldiers being repatriated to Australia during her service with the Australian Army Nursing Service in World War I. Before enlisting she had been matron at Jerilderie and Queanbeyan hospitals in NSW and at Duntroon Military Hospital, ACT.

Ruth Allardyce Steel enlisted in the Australian Army Nursing Service in 1917 for service in World War I and was sent with a group of Australian nurses to Salonika. She became ill almost immediately with malaria and in 1918 returned to Australia. She had trained at Royal Prince Alfred Hospital Sydney and was a nursing sister there both before and after her enlistment in the military.

The Austrian Girls were three young women who were imprisoned as enemy aliens in Australia during World War I. They were held at the Molonglo Concentration Camp, Canberra, in the then new Federal Capital Territory from August 1918 to May 1919.

In 1915 Mary Paule Cunningham travelled to England where she trained with the Voluntary Aid Detachment (VAD) and thereafter worked in military hospitals in southern England.

Susan Hollingsworth was a widow with three of her eleven children and six grandchildren living at home in Hall, a small village in the north of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT – now the ACT) when World War One broke out. When two of her sons-in-law enlisted with the Australian Imperial Force (AIF) she offered safe haven to her daughters and their children who moved back to Hall. Her son Clyde died in France in 1917 aged 23 years. Susan was well-known as a supporter of the Red Cross in their fundraising ventures.

During World War One the Australian government interned Frau Luise Hurtzig as an enemy alien together with her husband Captain August Hurtzig, an officer with the Norddeutscher Lloyd shipping company, and their two younger daughters Hanna and Lore. Initially the Hurtzigs were interned in Brisbane and then Enoggera before being moved to the Berrima Concentration Camp, New South Wales in 1915, and then to the Molonglo Concentration Camp, Fyshwick, Canberra in May 1918. They were finally released on 22 May 1919, and repatriated to Germany on the SS Kursk, sailing on 29 May 1919.

Jane Miller lived in Canberra from 1913 after her husband Colonel David Miller was appointed the first administrator of the Federal Capital Territory (as the ACT was called until 1938) in 1912. Early in World War I, she founded and became President of the Federal Territory War Food Fund. She also organised collections of clothes for Belgian babies and oversaw the organisation of many fundraising concerts. Her son, Selwyn Miller, served with the British Army in Palestine from 1917, returning to Australia in 1919.

Ellen Rohrmann was living with family in Singapore when World War I broke out. Declared an enemy alien by the ruling British, she and other relatives were transported to Australia and initially interned at Bourke, New South Wales before being moved to the Molonglo Concentration Camp in the Federal Capital Territory where Ellen died in 1918.

Catherine ‘Katie’ Sheaffe represented the Tharwa community on the Federal Capital Territory War Food Fund committee during World War I.

Louisa Southwell was the founding president of the Hall branch of the Red Cross Society, which was founded in May 1916. She became vice-president in 1917 when Blanche Crace took over the presidency.

Dr Beth Wilson AM is a former senior public servant who retired in December 2012 after serving as Victoria’s Health Services Commissioner for 15 years (1997-2012). In this role, Dr Wilson managed complaints made against health service providers.

After graduating from Monash University (BA 1975, LLB 1977), Dr Wilson worked in administrative law with a particular interest in medico-legal and ethical issues.

Prior to her role as Health Services Commissioner Dr Wilson was president of the Mental Health Review Board, a senior legal member of the Social Security Appeals Board and legal member of the WorkCare Appeals Board. She has also held various positions with the Australian and New Zealand Association of Psychiatry, Psychology and Law, the Law Reform Commission, the Victoria Law Foundation and Telecom (now Telstra).

In 2001 Monash University acknowledged Dr Wilson by presenting her with a Distinguished Alumni Award. The award celebrated her contribution to research, public administration and ethical practice in the areas of law and health.

In 2003 Dr Wilson was recognised for her services to health with a Centenary Medal.

She received an Honorary Doctorate in 2004 from RMIT for her contributions to health education.

In 2008 Dr Wilson was named on the 2008 Victorian Women’s Honour Roll.

On Australia Day 2013 she received a Member of the Order of Australia ‘for significant service to the community of Victoria through the provision of dispute resolution in the area of health services’.

Catherine Ena “Cate” Holmes, AC, assumed the office of Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Queensland on 11 September 2015.She holds the degrees of B.Econ (ANU), B.A. (Hons), LLB, LLM (Advanced) (UQ).

Holmes was admitted as a solicitor in 1982 and as a barrister in 1984, taking silk in 1999. While in practice, Justice Holmes was at various times a part time member of the Anti-Discrimination Tribunal, Deputy President of the Queensland Community Corrections Board and, during 1998 and 1999, Counsel assisting the Forde Commission of Inquiry into Child Abuse. Her Honour was appointed to the Supreme Court of Queensland in March 2000. She was the judge overseeing the Court’s criminal list for some years, and was the judge constituting the Mental Health Court from February 2005 until May 2006, when she was appointed to the Court of Appeal. From 16 January 2011 until 16 March 2012, Justice Holmes was the Commissioner of the Commission of Inquiry into the Queensland Floods 2010-2011.

Justice Holmes AC was made a Companion in the General Division of the Order of Australia on Australia Day in 2020, for eminent service to the judiciary, notably to criminal, administrative, and mental health law, and to the community of Queensland. She was a founding member of the Queensland Women’s Legal Service in 1984.

Catherine Ordway is a highly respected sports lawyer, sports administrator, lecturer and consultant. In recognition of her strong reputation for regulatory review in the international sport integrity field, Catherine has recently been awarded an academic appointment at La Trobe University in Melbourne, Victoria as Professor of Practice (Sports Management). As well as her academic appointment, Catherine holds a position as Special Counsel at Snedden Hall & Gallop (SHG Sport) in Canberra.

Ordway’s expertise in assisting organisations to strengthen integrity in sport programs has led to her consultancy services being highly sought after by National Anti-Doping Organisations and countries bidding to host Summer or Winter Olympic Games. She is regularly requested to present at conferences and seminars, and to comment in the media on sports law, gender equity and integrity issues.

Debra Mullins is a Judge of the Supreme Court of Queensland, a Trustee of the Sylvia and Charles Viertel Charitable Foundation and the Chancellor of the Anglican Diocese of Brisbane. She is the patron of Justice and the Law Society based at the University of Queensland and a member of the Visiting Committee of the Griffith Law School. She is also extensively involved in judicial education through her work with the National Judicial College of Australia.

When Elizabeth Bolton was appointed South Australian Chief Magistrate in 2007, she became the first woman to head a court jurisdiction in the history of South Australia.

After completing a Bachelor of Arts (Hons) majoring in English Literature and then a Master of Arts degree at the University of Adelaide, Elizabeth Bolton subsequently completed a Law degree at the same university before commencing practice as a lawyer in 1985.

After periods as a prosecutor firstly with the state Department of Public Prosecutions (DPP) and then with the Commonwealth DPP, she was appointed as a magistrate in December 1999. She began with two years sitting in Elizabeth, where she also went on circuit to Tanunda, Clare, Peterborough and Berri. In 2004 she was appointed the regional manager at the Christies Beach Magistrates Court.

She became Chief Magistrate in 2007. This role was changed by legislation to be both Chief Magistrate and a Judge of the S.A. District Court in July 2013.

Chief Magistrate Elizabeth Bolton resigned from the position in July 2015 due to ill health.

Elizabeth Shaw is a qualified company director and holds degrees in arts and law as well as a Masters of Public Policy. She currently (2015) serves as the President of UN Women Australia, Deputy Chair of Global Voices, and as a Director of Inclusion WA. She has been recognised with an Australian Leadership Award from the Australian Davos Connection, and a West Australian of the Year Award.

Genevieve Bolton was born in Bendigo Victoria but spent most of her childhood growing up in Brisbane. After graduating from Mount Saint Michael’s College in Ashgrove, Brisbane she undertook her Bachelor of Law Degree at the Queensland University of Technology graduating in 1994.

She then spent a year in Melbourne undertaking a social justice volunteer placement run by the Jesuits and Sisters of Mercy where she was placed with the then Refugee and Advice Casework Service now Refugee and Immigration Legal Centre (RILC). In that role, she provided legal assistance to onshore asylum seekers and people seeking to sponsor relatives from refugee situations abroad.

She quickly learnt that she wanted to pursue a career in the community legal sector. In 1995, she completed her legal practical training at the Leo Cussen Institute in Melbourne and was admitted as a Solicitor and Barrister in Victoria and obtained her first paid legal job with then the Victorian Immigration Advice and Rights Centre now known as RILC. Genevieve has also been admitted as a Solicitor in Queensland and the ACT and is on the High Court roll.

Genevieve Bolton is currently (2015) the Co-ordinator/Principal Solicitor at Canberra Community Law which provides free legal services to disadvantaged and vulnerable people.

Dr Helen Durham is a leading international lawyer, focusing on international humanitarian law (IHL or the laws of war). With a passion for the protections afforded to civilians during times of armed conflict (in particular women) Helen has had a long term career with the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement. In 2014 she was appointed as the Director of International Law and Policy for the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) headquarters in Geneva Switzerland and is the first woman to occupy this role in the institution’s 150 year history.

In 2017, Helen Durham was made an Officer in the General Division of the Order of Australia ‘for distinguished service to international relations in the area of humanitarian and criminal law, to the protection of women during times of armed conflict, and to legal education’.

Helen Gay Murrell was sworn in as the Chief Justice of the Australian Capital Territory (ACT) Supreme Court on 28 October 2013, thus becoming the ACT’s first female Supreme Court Chief Justice.

Murrell was first enrolled as a solicitor in 1977, working in the then Commonwealth Crown Solicitor’s Office and the New South Wales (NSW) Legal Aid Commission. She was called to the NSW Bar in 1981, appointed silk in 1995, and has practised across criminal law, administrative law, environmental law, common law and equity.

In 1996, Judge Murrell was appointed a NSW District Court Judge in 1996. She is former president of the NSW Equal Opportunity Tribunal and set up the first NSW Drug Court in 1998