The Australian Women's Register

The Zonta Club of Brisbane was the first Zonta Club in Queensland. It was chartered on October 1, 1971.

In addition to supporting international projects through the Zonta International Foundation, the Zonta Club of Brisbane also supports a variety of local projects and awards.

Lyndel Prott (AO (1991), Öst. EKWuK(i) (2000), Hon FAHA; LL.D. (honoris causa) B.A. LL.B. (University of Sydney), Licence spéciale en Droit international (ULB Brussels), Dr. Juris (Tübingen) and member of Gray’s Inn, London, is former Director of UNESCO’s Division of Cultural Heritage and former Professor of Cultural Heritage Law at the University of Sydney.

She has had a distinguished career in teaching, research and practice.

At UNESCO 1990-2002 she was responsible for the administration of UNESCO’s Conventions and standard-setting Recommendations on the protection of cultural heritage and also for the negotiations on the 1999 Protocol to the Hague Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict 1954 and for the Convention on the Protection of the Underwater Cultural Heritage 2001. She contributed as Observer for UNESCO to the negotiations for the UNIDROIT Convention on Stolen or Illegally Exported Cultural Objects 1995.

She has authored, co-authored or edited over 300 books, reports or articles, written in English, French or German and translated into 9 other languages. Currently Honorary Professor at the University of Queensland, she has taught at many universities including long distance learning courses on International Heritage Law.

Peg Lusink was the first Victorian woman appointed to the Judiciary and also the second woman appointed to the Family Court, when it began operations in 1976. Prior to her judicial appointment, Peg was a Partner at Corr and Corr, working principally in the areas of matrimonial causes and family law. She briefly practiced at the Melbourne Bar before becoming a Family Court Judge. Upon retirement from the Family Court, in 1990, Peg became one of the foundational Professors in the Law Faculty at Bond University. In 1996, Peg accepted another judicial appointment, becoming the President of the Commonwealth Professional Services Review Tribunal. In that same year she was appointed AM for law for services to the Family Court and the community.

Peg Lusink 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 AustraliaCATALOGUE RECORD.

In 1982, Vivien Payne, Antoinette (Toni) Kennedy, Diana Bryant, Anne Payne, Christine Wheeler, Rhonda Griffiths, Becky Vidler and Kim Rooney established the Women Lawyers’ Association of Western Australia (WLWA). Vivian Payne was its first president.

Since formation WLWA has actively lobbied for and achieved a number of changes in the legal profession, such as the introduction of flexible work practices, the inclusion of sexual harassment as a breach of the professional conduct rules, consultations with the State Government and the Chief Justice concerning appointments of Judges and Senior Counsel and the introduction of a model briefing policy to promote equal opportunities in briefing practices.

Diane Fingleton is a retired Queensland Magistrates Court judge. Appointed a magistrate in 1995, she became a senior magistrate three years later. In 1999 she was appointed to the position of Chief Magistrate, the first woman to ever hold the position.

Fingleton approached the appointment with a reformist agenda, introducing important initiatives such as specialist courts for Queensland Aboriginal people (Murri Courts) and programs to assist victims of domestic violence to stay in their homes. Response from her colleagues to initiatives to encourage inclusiveness, such as issuing a formal apology to Indigenous people and performing reconciliation ceremonies, varied from enthusiastic approval to vicious criticism. The views of Indigenous people mattered most to her; a spokesperson from the Aboriginal Legal Service telling her: ‘You can have no idea what a difference this made.’

Her reformist agenda as Chief Magistrate brought challenges with it, none greater than one which began as a magistrate’s transfer dispute, leading to her trial and imprisonment on a charge of retaliating against a witness. In 2005, following a failed appeal to the Queensland Supreme Court, the High Court of Australia quashed her conviction, with Justice McHugh arguing ‘it would be hard to imagine a stronger case of a miscarriage of justice in the particular circumstances of the case’. Later that year, she was again appointed and sworn in as a magistrate of the Caloundra Magistrates Court.

Fingleton retired in May 2010, with hopes that the positive measures she undertook to deliver justice to Queenslanders ‘before she was interrupted’, would be acknowledged. While it is important to note the impact of the miscarriage of justice upon Diane Fingleton, it is more important to ensure that her legacy is not defined by it.

Diane Fingleton 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.

Marlene Hall rose to become a highly regarded specialist in the field of aged care law, and the first person to be appointed as Special Counsel Aged Care Law in the Commonwealth Department of Health. Hall came to the law after a career as an English teacher; studying for a Bachelor of Laws degree at night school in order to graduate, she attributes her background in English language and literature, and her work at weekends in nursing homes over the years, to the later success she experienced in her dealings in complex aged care law matters. She made a significant contribution to public sector law, including through the national ‘Living Longer Living Better’ aged care policy reforms.

Marlene Hall 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 Honourable Sally Thomas was the first woman to serve as a judge of the Supreme Court of the Northern Territory, serving from 1992 – 2009. After retiring from the bench, she was appointed Chief Administrator of the Northern Territory, being sworn in on 31 October 2011 at Parliament House, Darwin, by the then Governor-General of Australia, Ms Quentin Bryce AC.

As well as having a distinguished career in the judicial system, Her Honour was Chair of the Legal Aid Commission from 1990 to 1996, Chair of the Northern Territory Winston Churchill Fellowship Committee from 1992 to 2004 and in 2004 she was appointed Deputy National Chair Fellowship, of the Winston Churchill Memorial Trust. Commenting on her appointment as Chancellor of Charles Darwin University (CDU) on 1 January 2010, Vice Chancellor Barney Glover noted that ‘[h]er strong leadership, coupled with her extensive experience as a committed reformer and contributor to social justice within Australia and beyond will bring a new perspective to CDU.’

Sally Thomas 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 Australia CATALOGUE RECORD.

Hilary Charlesworth is a Melbourne Laureate Professor at Melbourne Law School. She is also a Distinguished Professor at the Australian National University. Her research includes the structure of the international legal system, peacebuilding, human rights law and international humanitarian law and international legal theory, particularly feminist approaches to international law. Hilary received the American Society of International Law’s award for creative legal scholarship for her book, co-authored with Christine Chinkin, The Boundaries of International Law. She was also awarded, with Christine Chinkin, the American Society of International Law’s Goler T. Butcher award for ‘outstanding contributions to the development or effective realization of international human rights law’. Hilary has held both an Australian Research Council Federation Fellowship (2005-2010) and an ARC Laureate Fellowship (2010-2015).

Hilary has been a visiting professor at various institutions including Harvard Law School, New York University Global Law School, UCLA, Paris I and the London School of Economics. She is a member of the Executive Council of the Asian Society of International Law and a past President of the Australian and New Zealand Society of International Law. Hilary was appointed by the Australian government in 2015 to a second term as a member of the Permanent Court of Arbitration. She is an associate member of the Institut de Droit International and served as judge ad hoc in the International Court of Justice in the Whaling in the Antarctic Case (2011-2014). In 2016 Hilary was awarded an Honorary Doctorate by the Université Catholique de Louvain in Belgium.

She was President of the Australian and New Zealand Society of International Law (1997-2001). She is on the editorial boards of a number of international law journals and served as Co-Editor of the Australian Yearbook of International Law from1996-2006 and a member of the Board of Editors of the American Journal of International Law 1999-2009. She was joint winner of the American Society of International Law’s 2006 Goler T Butcher Medal in recognition of ‘outstanding contributions to the development or effective realization of international human rights law’.

She has worked with various non-governmental human rights organisations on ways to implement international human rights standards and was chair of the Australian Capital Territory government’s inquiry into an ACT bill of rights, which led to the adoption of the ACT Human Rights Act 2004. In 2016, Hilary is teaching in the University of Melbourne’s Masters of Law Program.

The Hon. Dr Robyn Layton has been a champion of social justice and rights for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, refugees, women and children. A former Judge of the Supreme Court of South Australia, Layton was the third woman to take silk in the State. She is a former Judge and Deputy President of the South Australian Industrial Court and Commission, and a former Deputy President of the Commonwealth Administrative Appeals Tribunal. She was the reporter and author of the landmark Child Protection Review into South Australian Child Protection Laws in 2003. Layton has the distinction of having been the first Australian to be appointed as a member of the International Labour Organization’s Committee of Experts on the Application of Conventions and Recommendations, and its first female Chair. In 2012 she was appointed an Officer of the Order of Australia (AO) for services to the law and to the judiciary, particularly through the Supreme Court of South Australia, as an advocate for Indigenous, refugee and children’s rights, and to the community.

Robyn Layton 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. Margaret Nyland AM was the second woman to be appointed to the Supreme Court of South Australia. One of only three women admitted to practice in the State in 1965, Nyland obtained articles and in time became the senior partner in her own law firm. She later enjoyed a successful career, where her area of specialisation was family law. Subsequent appointments included Inaugural Chairperson of the Commonwealth Social Security Appeals Tribunal (SA) (1975 to 1987); Chair of the South Australian Sex Discrimination Board (1985); Deputy Presiding Officer of the Equal Opportunity Tribunal (1986); District Court Judge (1987) and Supreme Court Judge (1993). After retiring from the Supreme Court in 2012, in 2014 Nyland was appointed Commissioner to the Child Protection Systems Royal Commission (SA). Nyland was appointed a Member of the Order of Australia for services to the judiciary, human rights and the equal status of women, and to the community through a range of cultural organisations.

Margaret Nyland 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.

Sally Brown was at the forefront of women advancing in the Victorian judiciary, as one of the first female magistrates appointed in Victoria in 1985. She was appointed Chief Magistrate in 1990, and then a Judge of the Family Court of Australia in 1993. She has served on a number of boards, including as Chair of the Australian Institute of Criminology.

Nerida Josephine Cohen (later Goodman) was the second woman (and first Jewish woman) to practise at the New South Wales (NSW) Bar. Amongst her early mentors were Professor Gladys Marks and feminist leaders Jessie Street and Ruby Rich. She was admitted to the NSW bar in 1935.

She built her business steadily throughout the 1930s and 40s, particularly in the area of divorce and industrial law, because she had an abiding interest in advancing the rights of women in the domestic and industrial spheres.

During WWII, Nerida left the Bar to play a part in the war effort by working firstly with the Women’s Employment Board and then with the NSW Department of Labour and Industry as a legal officer. She was chairman of the Council for Women in War Work, which collected records of the achievements of women during the war.

In 1952, she was invited to be the inaugural president of the Women Lawyers Association of New South Wales.

Motivated by a burning sense of injustice, Elizabeth Eggleston was a trailblazer in advocating justice for Aboriginal people. An academic lawyer and activist – she was the first doctoral candidate in the Faculty of Law at Monash University – Eggleston’s research revealed systematic discrimination of Indigenous peoples in the administration of justice. She was a founder of the Victorian Aboriginal Legal Service in 1972.

The Honourable Diana Bryant is an Australian jurist. She was appointed Chief Justice of the Family Court of Australia on 5 July 2004. Before this, she was the inaugural Chief Federal Magistrate of the Federal Magistrates Court of Australia (now the Federal Circuit Court of Australia) from 2000-2004.

Her Honour’s appointment to the bench followed many years practising in family law in both Perth and Victoria. In Perth, she was a partner with the firm Phillips Fox; in Melbourne she was a founding member of Chancery Chambers. Known to be ‘a brilliant lawyer’, with an ‘innate sense of justice and fairness,’ her time as a barrister was marked by her preparedness to pursue both on behalf of her clients even at her own cost.

Her Honour has long been committed to advocating on behalf of women in the legal profession, having been a founding member of the Women Lawyers Association of Western Australia. She is currently Patron of Australian Women Lawyers and a committee member of The Australian Association of Women Judges.

Born into a family of legal professionals (her mother was a lawyer, as was her grandfather), Her Honour has witnessed considerable change across the course of her professional life, with regards to the status of women in the legal profession. In a 2016 address at the Australian Women Lawyers conference, she noted, ‘[a]although there are further mountains to climb for women lawyers, the progress is encouraging, ‘suggesting that one of the most ‘encouraging signs’ was greater acceptance of the need for ‘different work policies and practices which do not impede the path to success.’

Diana Bryant 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.

Lynnette Schiftan was the ninth woman to sign the Victorian Bar Roll (1967) and the second Victorian woman to take silk (1983). In 1985 she was appointed a Judge of the County Court of Victoria – the first woman to be appointed to a Victorian State Court.

A Victorian Bar News article published at the time of Schiftan’s appointment to the bench quoted her reflections on the early days of her legal career:

‘I experienced a great deal of prejudice as a female barrister, from the community generally, from solicitors and from the Bench. However, I suffered no such prejudice from other members of the Bar, who formed a protective barrier around me, which I remember with great affection.’

She was also treated well by the majority of her ‘brother judges’, several of whom ‘were accepting and helpful particularly as it was a Court in which I had never practiced. I had three judges come to me separately unbeknownst to the other two and say, “you haven’t done much crime like this, have you. Okay how about you come at 7:30 in the morning and I’ll help you.” All offered a list of things to consider.’

When Schiftan resigned from the bench in 1988, she was still the only female member of the Victorian State Judiciary. In March 1988 she joined Coles Myer as General Manager Legislative Affairs, a role requiring her to monitor the company’s compliance with relevant legislation and to represent the company in an advocacy role as necessary.

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

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.

Ina Higgins was amongst the first wave of feminists and one of the first professional landscape gardeners in Australia. It is due to her lobbying that women were admitted to the Burnley School of Horticulture in 1899. Later graduates such as Olive Mellor, Edna Walling and Emily Gibson were able to follow her footsteps because she paved the way. Higgins became involved in the garden at the Royal Talbot Epileptic Colony, Clayton (now Monash University), Heronswood at Dromana and she was invited by the New South Wales Murrumbidgee Irrigation Trust to assist on the planting plans of the New South Wales towns Leeton and Griffin, designed by Walter Burley Griffin. One of her most ambitious projects was with her friends Vida Goldstein and Cecilia Anne John in establishing the Rural Women’s Industries Co-operative women’s farm in Mordialloc. In 1891 she signed the Women’s Suffrage Petition and in 1894 became honorary secretary of the United Council for Woman Suffrage. She was a member of the Women’s Political Association and when World War One broke out she became a member of the Women’s Peace Army. In 1934 The Centenary Gift Book celebrated the contribution that pioneer women made to settling Victoria; Higgins contributed an article promoting horticulture as a career for women.

Marie Florence Whitlock enlisted in 1917 for service overseas in the Australian Army Nursing Service in World War I. She spent the next two years nursing casualties in Egypt. In 1916 she had spent a short time nursing at Duntroon Military College, Canberra.

In November 1915 Tommy Cunningham sailed with her mother to Cairo to be near her fiancé, Major Charles ‘Stewart’ Davies (1880-1946), who sailed for Cairo on 10 November 1915 on the HMAT Ascanius with the 8th Infantry Brigade. After her marriage in Cairo and her husband’s deployment to the Western Front in France Tommy visited wounded soldiers in military hospitals and learned to drive an ambulance.

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.

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

In 1917 Ethel Macfie volunteered for overseas duty with the Australian Army Nursing Service in World War I. She nursed in British hospitals in Salonika until after the end of the war. Before enlisting she had nursed briefly at Canberra Hospital. Ethel Macfie was born in Birmingham, England and migrated to Australia with her family in 1885.

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 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.

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