The Australian Women's Register

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.

Elaine Nile was a Member of the NSW Legislative Council from 19 March 1988 to 27 August 2002. She was a member of the Call to Australia Group.

Marlene Goldsmith was a Member of the NSW Legislative Council from 19 March 1988 to 5 March 1999. She was a member of the Liberal Party.

Dawn Fardell was elected to the New South Wales Legislative Assembly in 2004 at a by-election as the independent member for Dubbo. She was re-elected in 2007, but was defeated at the 2011 election.
Before entering parliament, she served as a Dubbo City Councillor from 1999-2005.

Heather Henderson is the only daughter of former Australian Prime Minister Sir Robert Menzies and Dame Pattie Menzies. She was influential in the development of Australia’s capital city, Canberra.

Gumbaingerri born of Bundjalung/Thungutti descent, Robyne Bancroft’s people come from the northeast coast of New South Wales. For many generations since colonisation, her family (matrilineally) have passed on their genealogies and oral traditions.

A founder of the Winnunga Nimmityjah Aboriginal Health Service, Olive Brown was central in the fight to improve Aboriginal health services generally in the Canberra region.

On the slopes of Capitol Hill, overlooking a vast plain and the wandering Molonglo, Lady Denman pronounced in a clear voice, ‘I name the capital of Australia – Canberra’. It was Wednesday, 12 March 1913. While Lady Denman performed the naming rites her husband, the Governor-General, Lord Denman, laid a commemorative foundation stone. The site for the city was selected in accordance with Section 125 of the Constitution which stipulated that the federal seat of government would be located within the state of New South Wales, but not within a 100-mile radius of Sydney.

While playing her role in the creation of Canberra with aplomb, Lady Denman was destined for a higher realm of public duties, later becoming famous as ‘chairman’ of both the National Federation of Women’s Institutes and the National Birth Control Association in Britain.

In 1996, Kate Lundy became the youngest Labor representative in the Senate and the youngest woman ever elected to represent the Australian Labor Party in Federal Parliament. She was 28 years old.

On 11 September 2010, Lundy was appointed Parliamentary Secretary for Immigration and Citizenship and Parliamentary Secretary to the Prime Minister and Cabinet as part of the Second Gillard Ministry. In a subsequent reshuffle in March 2012, Lundy was appointed as the Minister for Sport and she was also made Minister for Multicultural Affairs and Minister Assisting the Minister for Industry and Innovation. On 1 July 2013, as part of the Second Rudd Ministry, Lundy retained the portfolio of Multicultural Affairs and gained the portfolio of Minister Assisting for the Digital Economy. She resigned from the Senate on 24 March 2015.

Melinda Pavey was elected to the NSW Legislative Council representing the National Party on 3 September 2002 and remained there until March 2015, when she resigned to contest the seat of Oxley in the Legislative Assembly at the state election in March of that year and was successful.

A Ngambri-Ngunnawal elder, Matilda House has a long-established connection to Canberra and its surrounding regions as one of the traditional custodians of the land.

Amanda Fazio was elected to the NSW Legislative Council on 30 August 2000 and served until 2015. She was president of the Legislative Council from 2009-2011, and was an active member of the Australian Labor Party from 1977.

Lady Hilda Garran, wife of Sir Robert Randolph Garran, was an agent of social cohesion in Canberra’s earliest days.

Lee Rhiannon was elected to the NSW Legislative Council on 27 March 1999 and served in that capacity until 2010, when she was elected to the Senate in the Parliament of Australia representing the state of new South Wales. She is a member of the Greens.

Canberra’s initial depiction as a civic utopia was captured and communicated by the hand of Marion Mahony Griffin. A remarkably talented draftswoman, Mahony Griffin was responsible for the plan and perspective renderings which accompanied her husband Walter Burley Griffin’s entry for the 1912 design competition for the new Australian capital. Lithographed onto cambric, the exquisite panels fanned out over twelve metres, shining with the golden, burnished splendour of the Australian bush. Conceived and created in less than ten weeks during a bitterly cold Chicago winter, Mahony Griffin enshrined a distinctively Australian landscape on the winning design, without ever having been to the southern site. Her grand vision was finished only when ‘toward midnight of a bitterly cold winter night, the box of drawings, too long to go in a taxi, was rushed with doors open … to the last train that could meet the last boat for Australia’.

Marion Mahony Griffin’s creative force has hesitantly received richer recognition as her prowess as an architect and an artist have continued to be seen in a more independent light.

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 Maxwell is a freelance curator, art valuer and consultant. She is best known as a curator of contemporary art in Canberra, where she lived from 1979 to 2014. Helen now lives and works on the south coast of New South Wales, where she organises art projects and exhibitions.

Jennifer Gardiner was elected to the NSW Legislative Council on 25 May 1991 representing the Nationals. She served until 2015 and was Deputy Leader of the Nationals in the Legislative Council from 2003..

Janice Burnswoods was elected to the New South Wales Legislative Council on 25 May 1991 and served until 2007. She has been a member of the Australian Labor Party since 1972.

Anne Press had a parliamentary career that spanned two decades and the opposite ends of the political spectrum. Initially elected in 1959 as an ALP councillor, Press was soon expelled (in 1959) from the party following her vote against party lines when she voted against the Legislative Council Abolition Bill. She then became a member of the Independent Labour Group, to which she belonged for eight years. She joined the liberal party in 1967, and was successfully re-elected to the council as their candidate in 1970. She retired from parliament in 1978.

Edna Roper was an ALP member of the New South Wales Legislative Council for over twenty years. She was elected in 1957 and then re-elected in 1970. She served as Deputy Leader of the Opposition between 3/12/1973 -13/5/1976 (2 years 5 months 11 days) and was Deputy Leader of Government between 14/5/1976 – 17/10/1978 (2 years 5 months 4 days). She was a delegate to the International Women’s Year conference in Mexico in 1975.

Amelia Rygate was an ALP Member of the New South Wales (NSW) Legislative Council between 7/9/1961 – 5/11/1978 (17 years 1 months 30 days). She was elected in 1961 and then re-elected in 1966. She retired from Parliament in 1978.

Virginia Chadwick is a member of the Liberal Party. She was a member of the directly elected Legislative Council. Dates of Election 7 October 1978 and 19 March 1988.
Parliamentary career highlights
Minister for Family and Community Services, 1988-1990
Minister for School Education and Youth Affairs, 1990-1992
Minister for Education and Youth Affairs and Minister for Employment and Training, 1992-93
Minister for Education, Training and Youth Affairs, Minister for Tourism and Minister Assisting the Premier, 1993-1995
Opposition Whip, 1984-1988

Virginia Chadwick was the President of the Legislative Council 1998-1999. She was the first woman Opposition Whip and woman to gain ministerial appointment in a Liberal Government.
Granted retention of title of “Honourable” for life.

Ellen Webster was an ALP Member of the New South Wales Legislative Council between 26/11/1931 – 22/4/1934 (2 years 4 months 28 days), She was appointed by Premier Jack Lang.

Penny Sharpe was elected to the NSW Legislative Council on 11 October 2005 for the balance of the term of service of Hon. C. M. Tebbutt (resigned). She is a member of the Australian Labor Party. She was re-elected in 2011. In 2015 she resigned to contest the Legislative Assembly seat of Newtown but was unsuccessful. She was then re-appointed to the Legislative Council to fill her own vacancy.

Kathleen Anderson was an ALP Member of the New South Wales Legislative Council between 23/4/1973 – 28/8/1981 (8 years 4 months 6 days). During that time she served as the Government Whip, between 1/10/1976 – 28/8/1981 (4 years 10 months) 28 days) She was first elected in 1973 and then re-elected in 1978.

Robyn Parker was elected to the NSW Legislative Council on 22 March 2003. She was a member of the Liberal Party. She was elected Member for Maitland at the 2011 election after moving from the Legislative Council to contest the seat. She served as Minister for the Environment and Minister for Heritage f rom 2011-2014 and retired at the 2015 election.