The Australian Women's Register

Ruth Hollick was a well-connected and award-winning society photographer based in Melbourne, whose work was exhibited throughout Australia and internationally. Hollick’s career spanned 70 years, and she is recognised as one of Australia’s most successful professional photographers. Hollick’s clientele included the Baillieus, the McCaugheys and the Hams. Hollick was also renowned for her portraits of children and fashion photography.

Mina Moore was a successful photographer who worked initially in New Zealand and then in Sydney and Melbourne. Together with her sister the she specialised in portraits of prominent people and artists, including society/celebrity portraits, with some wedding and children’s portraits. Mina Moore later set up her own studio in Melbourne and utilised unconventional backdrops, such as untreated hessian.

Doris McKellar was an amateur photographer based in Melbourne, whose photographs documented university life and the social activities of a wealthy professional family in Melbourne in the first half of the twentieth century. Using a Kodak No.3A Folding Pocket camera, she captured many aspects of life at the University of Melbourne. The University of Melbourne holds McKellar’s archive.

Ester Baylis was a prize-winning Pictorialist photographer and an active member of the Adelaide Camera Club. Baylis’ focus was primarily architectural photography, having previously trained in architecture. Baylis initially used a Box Brownie camera, and with prize money purchased a Thornton Pickard enlarger and an Adams Minex camera. Baylis was the first woman photographer to be included in an Australian public collection.

Hedda Morrison was an ethnographic photographer who worked extensively in China, Borneo and later Australia, where she settled in 1967. She was influenced by Neue Sachlichkeit, or the ‘new realist’ style. Morrison’s photographs were widely disseminated in books, including the seminal Sarawak: Vanishing World, and Travels of a Photographer. Morrison was a resourceful photographer, using two car batteries to power her portable enlarger while without power for six years in Sarawak, and storing her negatives in an airtight chest using silica gel as a drying agent to overcome the perils of a tropical climate. Morrison worked largely in black and white, except for in the early 1950s.

Jill Crossley is regarded equally as a commercial and an artistic photographer. In addition to freelance advertising photography, Crossley has taken photographs in collaboration with ABC productions, the Craft Council of Victoria, and an Australian archaeological team in Pompeii. Crossley’s style has been described as an interplay of realism and abstraction. Her early camera was a 116 folding camera, and in 1959 she used a Mamiyaflex and a Fujica camera. In recent years Crossley has worked with a small digital camera with a zoom lens.

Nicole Watson is a member of the Birri-Gubba People and the Yugambeh language group. Nicole has a bachelor of laws from the University of Queensland and a master of laws from the Queensland, University of Technology.

Nicole was admitted as a solicitor of the Supreme Court of Queensland in 1999. She has worked for Legal Aid Queensland, the National Native Title Tribunal and the Queensland Environmental Protection Agency. Nicole is also a former editor of the Indigenous Law Bulletin.

Nicole’s first crime fiction novel, The Boundary, was released nationally in June 2011. Nicole is a lawyer and a researcher at Jumbanna Indigenous Learning Centre at the University of Technology Sydney.

Gae Pincus completed an LLB at the Australian National University. She went on to work in the Office of Women’s Affairs; as an Associate for High Court Justice Lionel Murphy in 1982. In 1983 she returned to the Public Service to work in a legislative capacity dealing with law reform within various government departments. She went on to establish and chair the National Food Authority before working for the international body Food and Agricultural Organization.

In 1990 Justice Deirdre Frances O’Connor became the first woman to be appointed to the Federal Court. She was also the President of the Australian Industrial Relations Commission.

Elizabeth Johnston was born in Adelaide on 1 October 1920. She was educated at Woodlands Church of England Girls’ Grammar School at Glenelg. During her student days at Adelaide University she was secretary of the Radical Club and on the editorial staff of On Dit. She was the first female secretary of a trade union in South Australia, the partner in the law firm Johnston & Johnston and the chair of South Australia’s first Sex Discrimination Board. She was an activist and member of the Australian Communist Party and was married to Justice Elliott Johnston QC. She died in 2002.

Dr Sue Gordon AM has achieved many ‘firsts’ during her career. In 1986, she was the first Aboriginal person to head a government department in Western Australia, as Commissioner for Aboriginal Planning; in 1988 she was WA’s first Aboriginal magistrate and first full-time children’s court magistrate; and in 1990 she was one of five commissioners appointed by federal Labor minister Gerry Hand to the first board of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission (ATSIC).

Gordon has been appointed by state and federal governments, on both sides of politics, to various positions. In 2002 she was appointed by the Premier of Western Australia, Geoff Gallop, to head an inquiry into family violence and child abuse in Western Australian Aboriginal communities. One outcome of the Gordon Inquiry was closure of the controversial Swan Valley Noongar Camp. In 2004, she was appointed Chair of the new National Indigenous Council, an advisory body to the Federal Government, following the winding down of ATSIC. She chaired the Northern Territory Emergency Response Taskforce from June 2007 to June 2008 before retiring from the bench in September 2008.

In retirement, Gordon has remained very active in a variety of organisations. Currently (2016) president of the Graham (Polly) Farmer Foundation and the Police and Community Youth Centres Federation of WA (PCYC) Board, to name only a couple of her appointments, her special long term project is Sister Kate’s Aged Persons Project, supported by the Indigenous Land Corporation and Aboriginal Hostels Limited.

Gordon received the Order of Australia award in 1993 as acknowledgement of her work with Aboriginal people and community affairs. In 2003 she received an Honorary Degree of Doctor of Letters (Hon. DLitt) from the University of Western Australia, the same year she was awarded the ‘Centenary Medal’ for service to the community, particularly the Aboriginal community.

Sue Gordon was interviewed by Nikki Henningham for the Trailblazing Women and the Law Oral History Project. For details of the interview see the National Library of AustraliaCATALOGUE RECORD.

Janet Coombs had the longest-running practice of any woman at the NSW Bar (until her retirement), specialising initially in petty sessions. The Women Lawyers Association of New South Wales annual lunch for new women barristers is named in her honour.

Susan Maree Crennan AC was appointed to the High Court of Australia in November 2005. At the time of her appointment she was a judge of the Federal Court of Australia, having been appointed to that office in February 2004. She was educated at the University of Melbourne (BA and PostgradDipHist) and the University of Sydney (LLB). Justice Crennan AC was admitted to the New South Wales Bar in 1979 and joined the Victorian Bar in 1980. She was appointed a Queen’s Counsel in 1989. Justice Crennan AC was President of the Australian Bar Association 1994-95, Chairman of the Victorian Bar Council in 1993-94, and a Commissioner for Human Rights in 1992. Justice Crennan AC was appointed a Companion in the General Division of the Order of Australia in 2008.

Rosemary Balmford was the first woman judge appointed to the Supreme Court of Victoria.

Dr Natasha Cica is the founding director of Kapacity.org.

Natasha’s professional experience spans public administration (including as a legal and policy analyst advising Australia’s national parliament), crisis management, corporate law, and the higher education and non-government sectors. She has held policy-focused roles at think tanks and led strategy at start-ups in Australia and Europe – and is an award-winning author, broadcaster and public commentator.

In 2013 Natasha was recognized by the Australian Financial Review and Westpac banking group as one of Australia’s 100 Women of Influence, in the category of innovation. She was an inaugural recipient of a Sidney Myer Creative Fellowship in 2011, rewarding outstanding talent and exceptional courage in the field of thought leadership. She was a selected participant in the Australian Future Directions Forum – a leadership forum sponsored by Telstra, Qantas, BHP Billiton, the National Australia Bank and Australia Post, under the patronage of the Prime Minister of Australia.

Until 2014 Natasha was founding director of the Inglis Clark Centre, which she established in 2011 to advance the University of Tasmania’s engagement agenda.

In Europe, Natasha has provided professional services to the British Council, the Salzburg Global Seminar, the Serbian Investment and Export Promotion Agency (SIEPA) and Serbia’s Commission for the Protection of Equality. She has led and supported a range of capacity-building initiatives in partnership with local entrepreneurs across the business sector and civil society.

In Australia, she has served as a member of the Topic Advisory Panel on Governance Progress for Measures of Australia’s Progress, Australian Bureau of Statistics; as an adviser to Creative Partnerships Australia and the Tasmanian Chamber of Commerce + Industry; as a member of the advisory committee to the Tasmanian Government developing a Tasmanian Cultural Policy; as a member of Tasmania’s Educational Attainment Working Group; as a consultant to the Legislative Amendment Review Reference Committee established by the Tasmanian Government in response to Sharing Responsibility for Our Children, Young People and their Families; as co-founder of the Sandy Duncanson Social Justice Fund; as a member of the management committee of homeless men’s shelter Bethlehem House; as a juror of the Australian Institute of Architects Architecture Awards; as adviser to the Alcorso Foundation fostering cultural exchange between Europe and Australia; as a member of the steering committee of Arts Tasmania’s Design Island Program; and as an advisor to a coalition of Australian arts organisations on their successful campaign against the sedition provisions in the Anti-Terrorism Bill 2005 (Cth).

Natasha is an adjunct professor at the ANU College of Law at the Australian National University, and has been visiting professor at the University of Belgrade’s Faculty of Law, and visiting academic at the Alvar Aalto Academy in Helsinki. She was the inaugural Rubin Research Fellow at the School of Public Policy at University College London.

Natasha holds a doctorate in law from the University of Cambridge (as a WM Tapp scholar at Gonville and Caius College), a masters in law and ethics from King’s College London (awarded the Professor Sir Eric Scowen Prize for the best masters candidate), and a BA LLB (Hons) from the Australian National University (awarded the Blackburn Medal for research in law, the Tillyard Prize for the honours student ‘whose personal qualities and contributions to University life have been outstanding’, and a Lionel Murphy Overseas Postgraduate Scholarship). In 2014 she presented the ANU College of Law graduating address as a distinguished alumna.

Judith Cohen was the first female commissioner of the Commonwealth Conciliation and Arbitration Commission, appointed in 1975.

Bernadine Mulholland graduated in physiotherapy from the University of Queensland in 1955. In 1964 she established the a branch of the Childbirth Education Association in Canberra, joining the Australian Physiotherapy Association in 1967. In 1968 she began Canberra’s first childbirth classes. From 1969-83 she worked with physically handicapped children at the Royal Canberra Hospital (RCH) and helped establish the Hartley Centre, O’Connor, for children with cerebral palsy in 1973 working there as a physiotherapist and as its administrator (1975-78) . During the 1980s she worked at the RCH in orthopaedic and post-operative rehabilitation and from 1990-2007 in its Aged Care Unit. Since 2009 she has worked in the orthopaedics ward of the Calvary John James Hospital.

Justice Mary Finn of the Family Court of Australia is a second-generation woman lawyer (third generation lawyer). Her mother was Clare Foley, Queensland’s fourth woman solicitor, who, in turn, was the daughter of an Ipswich lawyer, Edward Pender. Appointed to the bench of the Family Court in 1990, Justice Finn retired on her seventieth birthday, in July 2016.

Finn’s reputation as a drafter and developer of legislation, established during her career in the Federal Attorney-General’s office, was renowned. Lionel Bowen, federal Attorney-General 1984-1990, described her advice as both ‘practical and accurate’; he was known to ask regularly, when confronted with legislative challenges, ‘What would Mary think?’

Finn is well known for her contribution to the review of the Family Law Act 1975, completed in 1980, and for her contribution to committees established to implement the report’s recommendations. Her public service experience established her credentials as an expert in family law; at the time of her appointment to the bench in 1990 she was regarded as one of Australia’s leading experts on the Family Law Act.

Both of Finn’s children, Wilfred and Eugenie, are fourth generation lawyers, with Eugenie enjoying a special and rare status in Australian law as a third generation woman lawyer.

A graduate of the University of Adelaide, Her Honour Judge Sue Oliver was admitted as a solicitor and barrister of the Supreme Court of South Australia in 1978 and then promptly moved with her (then) husband to Darwin, where she has lived ever since. She was appointed to the Northern Territory Magistrates Court (now called the Northern Territory Local Court) in 2006, after having practised law in a variety of public and private sectors contexts. As managing magistrate of the Northern Territory Youth Justice Court in the Northern Territory, she has a particular interest in and has published widely on matters relating to the complex issues surrounding the management of young offenders.

Since arriving in the N.T., Oliver has also contributed her time and energy to a variety of community and national organisations. These include the Family Planning Association, the YWCA, the International Legal Services Advisory Council, Commissioner for the NT Legal Aid Commission, committee member NT Law Society and Board Member of the Australian Women Lawyers. She is presently a member of the Country Women’s Association in Katherine.

Sue Oliver 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 Hon. Justice Hilary Penfold has enjoyed a distinguished career in the public service and as a member of the judiciary. After becoming the first woman in Australia to hold the position of First Parliamentary Counsel, she achieved the further distinction of becoming the first woman to be appointed as Commonwealth Queen’s Counsel. She later became the first resident woman judge of the Supreme Court of the Australian Capital Territory. Penfold’s contribution to the public service, to drafting and to the development of law in Australia has been immense.

Hilary Penfold 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.

The Hon. Justice Janine Pritchard was appointed to the Supreme Court of Western Australia on 11 June 2010. She was elevated to this position after a year as a Judge of the District Court of Western Australia, during which period she served as Deputy President of the State Administrative Tribunal. Prior to her appointment to the District Court, Justice Pritchard had worked in the WA Crown (now State) Solicitor’s Office (since 1991).

Known for her powerful intellect and work ethic, Justice Pritchard has been an important role model for women planning to combine a career in law, and in the judiciary in particular, with family responsibilities. Her first child was present at her swearing in ceremony; her second was born after her appointment. While she acknowledges the challenges of maintaining a demanding career with a ‘hands on’ approach to family life, Justice Pritchard has demonstrated that working arrangements for the judiciary are capable of accommodating family friendly policies, such as maternity leave.

Janine Pritchard 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.

A former Australian Young Lawyer of the Year, Zoe Rathus is Director of the Clinical Legal Education Program and Senior Lecturer at Griffith University’s Law School in Queensland. She was previously a solicitor, and then co-ordinator, at the Queensland Women’s Legal Service, in whose establishment she played an integral part. In 2011 Rathus was appointed a Member of the Order of Australia for service to the law, particularly through contributions to the rights of women, children and the Indigenous community, to education and to professional organisations.

Zoe Rathus 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.

Margaret Thornton is an acclaimed feminist academic in the field of feminist jurisprudence, discrimination, equal opportunity and gender studies at the Australian National University’s College of Law. She has degrees from the Universities of Sydney and New South Wales and Yale University. A prominent thinker and legal researcher, Thornton was the first female law professor to be appointed at La Trobe University in Victoria, Australia; during her academic career she demonstrated a significant commitment to the development of La Trobe’s law school. Thornton founded the Feminist Legal Action Group and convened the first feminist jurisprudence conference in Australia. She has participated in numerous consultations with agencies such as the International Labour Organisation, and advised parliaments on legislation. She has also published widely. Motivated by social justice and a desire for equality, Thornton has been steadfast in her efforts to improve conditions for women in society, particularly in the workplace and in educational institutions.

Margaret Thornton 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.

Emeritus Professor Sally Walker AM was the first female vice-chancellor and president of Australia’s Deakin University. Prior to holding these appointments, she was senior deputy vice-chancellor at the University of Melbourne, where she was also president of the University’s Academic Board, member of the senior executive, and pro vice-chancellor. Walker established the pioneering Centre for Media, Communications and Information Technology Law (now Centre for Media & Communications Law) at the Melbourne Law School and was its inaugural director. While at the Law School, she was Hearn Professor of Law. Walker was also secretary-general of the Law Council of Australia for a time.

Appointed as a Member of the Order of Australia in 2011, in recognition of her contribution to education, to the law as an academic and to the advancement of women. In 2014 she was inducted onto the Victorian Honour Roll of Women. As a Principal at Deloitte, Walker continues to consult widely on strategic and leadership matters in the higher education sector.

Sally Walker 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.

A proud Tanganekald and Meintangk woman from the Coorong region and the south east of South Australia, Irene Watson was the first Aboriginal person to graduate from the University of Adelaide with a law degree, in 1985. She was also the first Aboriginal PhD graduate (2000) at the university, winning the Bonython Law Prize for best thesis. Her research motivation has been clear from the outset: to gain a better understanding of the Australian legal system that is underpinned by the unlawful foundation of Terra Nullius.

Watson’s work has made a significant impression on everyday legal practice in respect of centring an Indigenous perspective in the long processes of law reform. In 2015 she published Aboriginal Peoples, Colonialism and International Law: Raw Law the first work to assess the legality and impact of colonisation from the viewpoint of Aboriginal law, rather than from that of the dominant Western legal tradition.

Watson has been involved in the Aboriginal Legal Rights Movement in South Australia since its inception in 1973, working as a member, solicitor and director. She has taught in all three South Australian universities and was a research fellow with the University of Sydney Law School. She is currently a research Professor of Law at the University of South Australia and she continues to work as an advocate for First Nations Peoples in international law.

Watson was involved with the drafting of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples between 1990 and 1994 and has more recently, in 2009 and 2012, made interventions before the UN Human Rights Council Expert Advisory Committee of the current position of Indigenous peoples.

In 2016, Watson was appointed The University of South Australia’s inaugural Indigenous pro-Vice Chancellor.

Irene Watson was interviewed by Nikki Henningham for the Trailblazing Women and the Law Oral History Project. For details of the interview see the National Library of AustraliaCATALOGUE RECORD.

Her Honour Nerida Wilson is a Magistrate based in the regional Queensland city of Mackay. Born, raised and educated in Cairns, her career in the law began in 1987 when she joined the Australian Federal Police, undertaking training in Canberra and then serving in Melbourne until 1994 when family circumstances brought her back to Cairns. In 1997 she fulfilled a childhood ambition to see the letters LLB beside her name by enrolling in law at Queensland University of Technology as a mature age student.

Upon graduation, Nerida worked as a solicitor in Mackay, (where she was by co-incidence, appointed to the bench in October 2015), before moving back to Cairns to practise. Nerida was called to the Bar in February 2008 and enjoyed a diverse practice in family, criminal and civil law. She also appeared at Inquests for parties and as Counsel Assisting the Coroner.

Nerida has been engaged in a number of important local community initiatives and organisations. She is a Past President of the Far North Qld Law Association and the Cairns Regional Domestic Violence Service. She lectured and tutored in family law at the Cairns campus of James Cook University. In the early 2000s Nerida developed an Annual Inter-Campus Moot Competition for students at James Cook University securing sponsorship for the event and attracting support from the local judiciary and senior legal practitioners.

Her standing in the community at large and capacity for managing change was acknowledged when she was elected President of the Cairns Golf Club in 2014, the first woman to hold the post in the club’s 90 year history.

Nerida’s contribution to the legal profession was acknowledged in 2013 when she was awarded the Regional Woman Lawyer of the Year Award by the Queensland Women Lawyers Association. She participated in the Queensland Women Lawyers ‘Ladder Program’ as a mentor for young women lawyers.

Her advice to all young women starting their careers in the law is to ‘Surround yourself with good people. Get good mentors early on – people that you can trust’. She counts Magistrate Tina Previtera amongst her mentors and one of the many ‘good people’ she was fortunate to meet. Her advice to all young people, regardless of whether they plan to be lawyers or not, is to ‘give life enough space to present opportunities to you. If we are too rigid, we are going to foreclose on so many rich, rich opportunities. Be open and embrace unexpected opportunities.’

Nerida Wilson was interviewed by Kim Rubenstein in the Trailblazing Women and the Law Oral History Project. For details of the interview see the National Library of Australia CATALOGUE RECORD.

Nerolie Withnall is a leading company director overseeing the direction and transformation of large Australian companies and institutions. She was the former Director of ALS, Alchemia Limited, PanAust and Computershare Communication Services Limited. A former Partner at Minter Ellison she was Chairman, Board of Queensland Museum and a member of the Council of the Australian National Maritime Museum and Board of the Australian Rugby Union. Withnall was also a long-term Member of the Takeovers Panel. Withnall made legal history becoming the first woman President of a Law Society in Australia.

Nerolie Withnall 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.