The Australian Women's Register

Sarah Henderson was elected Member for Corangamite representing the Liberal Party in the House of Representatives of the Australian Parliament at the September 2013 election.

Before her election to Parliament she worked as a broadcast journalist and lawyer.

Debbie Whitmont graduated in Arts and Law from Sydney University and practised as a lawyer in legal aid and then for government.

She joined ABC television’s Four Corners as a researcher in 1986 and was later awarded a cadetship at the ABC. She worked in ABC News before spending a short time in commercial TV, as both a reporter and a producer.

Returning to Four Corners in 1989, she was a producer, reporter and later an Associate Producer. As a producer she won the Gold Medal at the New York Film Festival and was nominated for an Emmy Award for “The Forgotten Famine” (with Mark Colvin). She also won a Logie for “Other People’s Money” (with Paul Barry).

From 1993 to 1996 Debbie was ABC TV’s Middle East Correspondent, based in Jordan and then in Jerusalem; reporting from Iran, Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Egypt and Pakistan among others; filing stories for News, Foreign Correspondent, Lateline and The 7.30 Report.

Since 1998, Debbie has been a Four Corners reporter. She is the author of the book “An Extreme Event”, about the fatal 1998 Sydney to Hobart yacht race.

In 2003 she won a Walkley award for her Four Corners’ report “About Woomera”.

For two consecutive years Debbie has won the Human Rights Commission Award for Journalism: in 2002 for “Inside Story”, about the Villawood Detention Centre; and for her report “About Woomera” in 2003.

Marie Byles was the first woman to qualify to practise law in New South Wales. As Honorary Solicitor, she worked with Jessie Street to change the law regarding women’s guardianship of their children. Establishing her own legal practice allowed her to devote herself to bushwalking, mountaineering and conservation of the environment. She was responsible for reserving Bouddi Natural Park north of the Hawkesbury River. A Pacifist, Byles was a devotee of Gandhi and developed an interest in Buddhism. A founding member of the Buddhist Society of New South Wales, she became an international authority on Buddhism and wrote several books on the subject.

Bruna Romano migrated to Australia from Italy with her family in 1956. In 1967 she was awarded a Council of Legal Education Certificate from the Legal Education Committee of Victoria and was admitted as a solicitor and barrister of the Supreme Court of Victoria in May 1968. In mid-1968 she became the first woman to establish a law practice in the ACT, and remained head of the firm Romano & Co. until 2003. She was active in a number of community organisations in Canberra until the 1990s and continued to practise as a family law consultant.

A member of the Australian Labor Party, Nicola Roxon was elected to the House of Representatives for Gellibrand, Victoria, in 1998, and was re-elected in 2001, 2004, 2007 and 2010. She became Shadow Minister for Health in 2006 and on the election of the Labor Government in November 2007, she became the Minister for Health and Ageing.

She continued to hold that portfolio in the Gillard Labor Government until she was appointed Attorney-General on December 14, 2011; the first woman to hold the position in the Australian parliament.

She resigned from the portfolio in February 2013 and retired from parliament on 5 August 2013.

Elizabeth Evatt was the first Chief Justice of the Family Court of Australia and the first woman to preside in an Australian Federal Court.

In August 2020, a specialist domestic violence resource was established and named in her honour. The Evatt List, operating in the Federal Circuit Court of Australia across selected registries, will identify high-risk cases, enabling them to be fast-tracked with appropriate security arrangements in place.

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.

Helen Sham-Ho was a Member of the NSW Legislative Council from 19 March 1988 to 28 February 2003. She represented the Liberal Party from 1988-1998 and served out the remainder of her term as an Independent. She was the first Chinese born Parliamentarian in Australia.

Marie Bignold was a member of the Call To Australia Group (CTA). She was a member of the directly elected Legislative Council from 1984-1991; she was elected on 5 December 1984. Bignold was the first woman lawyer to take a seat in the Legislative Council.

Lorraine Wearne was a successful Independent local Councillor on the Parramatta City Council from 1995 to 2007 and was Lord Mayor from 2000-2001. This made her the first woman Lord Mayor of Parramatta and the first woman in the Sydney region to hold that title. She was motivated to run for the 2003 election for the New South Wales Legislative Assembly seat of Parramatta by a sense of fair play. Her campaign slogan was “People not Politics for Parramatta”. Lorraine Wearne’s candidature as an Independent was prompted by distaste of the preselection procedures of the ALP which imposed a Head Office candidate over a local Councillor.

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.

Jennifer Scott is active in her local community and represented the Liberal Party in the New South Wales Legislative Assembly elections for the Blue Mountains in 1995 and 1999. She was President of the Hills Young Liberals 1972-75, and has been a delegate to State Convention 1993-, State Council 1994-, and on the State Executive of the Liberal Party 1996-7. Jennifer is actively involved in the Cancer Support Group Fundraising in her area and is a member of the Springwood Palliative Care Unit. She is married with two daughters and has completed a B.A., B.Legal Studies at Macquarie University and Certificates in Mediation at Bond University & UTS.

An activist, particularly in regard to women’s issues, Judith Mundey represented the Communist Party of Australia in the 1967 and 1968 elections for the New South Wales Legislative Assembly seat of Phillip and in the 1980 House of Representatives election for Sydney. She became the first woman President of the Communist Party of Australia 1979-82, having been Secretary of the Sydney District Committee of the party 1973-79. She was also one of a group of women who established the Women’s Liberation Movement in Australia in 1969.

Judy Mundey was born in Sydney and educated at Eastlakes and Mascot Public Schools, and at St George Girls’ High School. She later completed an Arts degree and a Law degree at Macquarie University. In 1965 she married Jack Mundey, of BLF and Green Bans fame, and they had one son.

A once only candidate whose later career was in private practice of the law, Claire Newton joined the Lismore branch of the ALP in 1982 and was their candidate in the 1984 New South Wales Legislative Assembly elections. At the time of her campaign she had been employed at the Lismore Women’s Refuge for 4 years.

Claire Newton was educated to fourth form at St Bernadette’s Secondary Modern School, Bristol and finished her schooling at Fairfield Girls’ High School, after arriving in Australia in 1972 and moving to Lismore in 1977. In the 1990s, Claire Newton completed an associate diploma in law and worked for some time as a paralegal. She then returned to study and finished a law degree (LL.B.) at the Southern Cross University. She is married, with two daughters and works with a firm of solicitors in Ballina.

A once only candidate, Joanne Mccafferty represented the Liberal Party at the 2003 election for the seat of Georges River in the New South Wales Legislative Assembly. She was born and educated in the Georges River area and later completed a B.A., LL.B, at the University of Sydney and a M.Com. at the University of New South Wales. She has worked as a lawyer, and as a senior manager in the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade. She also spent several years working with Australian companies in China.

Janet McDonald was a once only candidate (ALP, New South Wales Legislative Assembly, North Shore, 1999) whose career in the law has continued successfully. She was President of the Australasian Law Students Association and has worked as a solicitor, waitress, cashier and company director. Janet was admitted as a Solicitor of the Supreme Court of NSW on 20 December 1989. She later tutored in Law at the University of Sydney for a short time.

At the time of her campaign, Janet McDonald was in partnership with her husband in Driscoll & Matters, a Legal Costs Consulting company. In 2000, having built up the business to a client base of over 160 firms, they sold out and went into the coffee cart business, selling coffee on the pavements of the city. They found they preferred the law and have re-established themselves as Driscoll Matters + Macdonald Pty Limited, Legal costs lawyers.

Janet is a keen sportswoman and a Sydney Swans Football Club supporter.

An active and committed environmentalist, Sonya McKay represented the Australian Greens in the House of Representatives election for Blaxland in 2001 and at the New South Wales Legislative Assembly election for East Hills in 2003. She conducted her campaign on the local issues of opposition to the Holsworthy airport proposal, opposition to the privatisation and expansion of Bankstown airport and prevention of overdevelopment of the electorate area. Sonya McKay was also a strong advocate of increased funding for health and public education. At the time of her campaign for East Hills she was enrolled in a Master of Environmental Law degree at the University of Sydney (B.A., LL.B). Sonya McKay was born and educated in the western suburbs of Sydney.

Jeni Klugman, who came from a political family, is a distinguished international economist. She was an ALP candidate in the New South Wales Legislative Assembly elections for Carlingford in 1988.

In 2019, Klugman is a fellow at the Kennedy School of Government’s Women in Public Policy Program at Harvard University and Managing Director, Georgetown Institute for Women Peace and Security. She recently became VicHealth’s second leading thinker, together with Professor Iris Bohnet, under an initiative that aims to make behavioral insights practical and accessible for Victorian government, industry and not-for-profit organizations.

Previous positions she has held include Director of Gender and Development at the World Bank, and director and lead author of three global Human Development Reports published by the UNDP.

Klugman sits on several boards and panels, including for the World Economic Forum and the Journal of Human Development and Capabilities. She holds a Ph.D. in Economics from the Australian National University, and postgraduate degrees in both Law and Development Economics from the University of Oxford where she was a Rhodes Scholar.

Mary Hawkins is a committed environmentalist who stood for the Australian Greens in the 2003 New South Wales Legislative Assembly elections for Strathfield. She had more success at the local government level where, in 2004, she was elected to the Ashfield Council. Mary Hawkins has practised law from 1994 and is a keen bushwalker, a cyclist and a bird watcher. She is also committed to reducing the negative impact of human activity on the environment. She has travelled widely in Asia, Europe and America and is opposed to the abrogation of Australia’s support of international bodies such as the UN and IPCC.

Karla Sperling is a committed Green activist whose academic study makes her an expert on environmental law and sustainability. She stood for the Greens in the following elections: New South Wales Legislative Assembly for Kiama in 1995; Senate for NSW in 1996; House of Representatives for Throsby in 1993 and 1998.

Barbara Perry was a successful candidate, who was elected the first time she ran for Parliament as an ALP candidate in the 2001 by-election for the New South Wales Legislative Assembly seat of Auburn. Barbara was re-elected in 2003, 2007 and 2011. She left Parliament in March 2015 after serving as a minister in previous Labor Governments. Prior to entering state politics she was a Councillor with the Auburn Council (1995-2003).

Kerry Chikarovski is the only woman ever to have held the leadership of the Opposition in the New South Wales Legislative Assembly. After her retirement from politics, she published her autobiography, Chika, in 2004. Since 2003 she has been Director, Infrastructure and Planning Australia Pty Ltd.

Karen Fletcher is a political activist with a passionate interest in justice. She is a long-term member of the Democratic Socialist Party and stood in elections for the New South Wales Legislative Assembly for Marrickville (1995); the House of Representatives for Sydney (1996); and the Queensland Senate (in both 1990 and 2001).

An ALP candidate, Tanya Rachelle Gadiel was elected to the New South Wales Legislative Assembly for Parramatta in 2003. She was re-elected in 2007, but retired before the 2011 election. She served as Deputy Speaker in the Christina Keneally Labor Government.

A once-only candidate, Margaret Bradshaw ran for the Liberal Party in the Blue Mountains elections of 1984.

Michelle Calvert was Alderman in the Ashfield Municipal Council from 1991-95 and active in environmental issues. She later ran for the No Aircraft Noise Party in the Ashfield elections of 1995 and in the House of Representatives for Lowe in 1996.

Suzanne Ashmore-Smith was a once-only candidate (ALP for Bligh in 1978), who later had a varied and successful career.