The Australian Women's Register

The Greek Orthodox Community is one of Australia’s oldest organisations representing Greek migrants. Apart from operating churches, it provides a wide range of migrant related social services, including afternoon Greek schools, kindergartens and aged care hostels. In more recent times, it has taken on board the need to meet its members’ cultural and artistic aspirations. This has involved a shift in emphasis towards promoting and supporting cultural initiatives not only of Greek/Australians of New South Wales but of all Australia.
In the 1970s and 80s the organisations premises were used to host meetings of the Australian-Migrant Women Association, an organisation established by Dorothy Buckland-Fuller with the aim of broadening the horizons of Australian-Greek women.

On June 2, 1976 the newly elected Australian Labor party Premier, Neville Wran, announced his cabinet’s decision to establish an Ethnic Affairs Commission. Under the Ethnic Affairs Act, 1976 ( Act No. 76, 1976) (3) the Ethnic Affairs Commission’s initial work involved the research and investigation of ethnic affairs with special emphasis on promoting the integration of different ethnic groups. The constitution and functions of a Commission to implement policy decisions in this area was also examined.

The Ethnic Affairs Commission interacted with a number of new government bodies all concerned with equal opportunity issues in society. These included the Anti-Discrimination Board which came into operation in June 1977 to address racial discrimination, the Review of New South Wales Government Administration which dealt with recruitment, promotion and equality of opportunity and the Women’s Coordination Unit of the Premier’s Department which had responsibility for creating opportunities for migrant women.

In 1978 the Ethnic Affairs Commission submitted its report, Participation, which outlined a concept of multiculturalism that went beyond preserving cultural heritage to a society where minority groups would achieve total participation in the New South Wales social and political system.

To implement this philosophy of equal opportunity Participation recommended that a Commission should be established as a strong and stable body to ensure that all elements of the New South Wales Government Administration come to regard ethnic affairs as part of their ordinary, day to day attitudes and thinking.

A new Ethnic Affairs Commission was established as a permanent government authority on 1 December 1979. It was established under the terms of the Ethnic Affairs Commission Act, Act No. 23, 1979. (7)

The Ethnic Childcare Development Unit was established in 1980, one of many initiatives funded through grant-in-aid programs that emerged in the wake of the Galbally Review of Migrant Post-arrival programs and services. It’s aim was to train immigrant women, many whom had overseas qualifications that were not recognised, to work in child-are centres and introduce multicultural programs.

The first branch of the Ukrainian Women’s Association was formed on September 13th, 1949 in Cowra migrant camp. Mrs. I Polensly was the inaugural president. Ukrainian women were holding meetings in all the migrant centres across Australia, however Cowra is always considered to be the cradle of the U.W.A in Australia

From the time of her election to parliament, Franca Arean was hopeful of forming a “network” of women of all backgrounds who could meet informally, exchange ideas and help and support each other. In January 1984, she sent a letter to twenty to thirty women asking them to come to a meeting at Parliament House. They met in Feb 1984 for the first time, and the Women’s Network – Australia was born. The first Women’s Network guest was Frederika Steen, the head of a newly established Women’s Desk at the Department of Immigration and Ethnic Affairs in Canberra.

The formation of the Greek Young Matrons’ Association was an overt attempt by second generation parents of Greek heritage to ensure that their children married Australian born Greeks like themselves. By providing them with an organisation which would offer social activities and cultural events in which young Greek people could participate, the organisers hoped that young Greeks would marry within the community.

In 1959 the U.S. Congress authorised and requested the President of the United States to proclaim the third week in July as Captive Nations Week. The Captive Nations Week Committee was founded in Sydney in 1965 to organise the inaugural, and subsequently annual, commemoration of Captive Nations Week in Australia. In 1971 the Committee changed its names to the Captive Nations Council of New South Wales to reflect, in part, its broadening scope of activities. Foundation member organisations comprised the Byelorussian Association of N.S.W., Central Council of Croatian Associations in Australia, Estonian Society of Sydney, Hungarian Council of N.S.W., Latvian Federation of Australia and New Zealand, Australian Lithuanian Community (Sydney District), Polish Association in N.S.W., Australian Romanian Association, Association of Australian Slovaks, Agency for Free Slovenia and Ukrainian Council of N.S.W.; by 1982 the Afghan Association in Australia and the Vietnamese Volunteer Youth in N.S.W. had become member organisations. In 1988 the Council made a submission to the Senate Standing Committee on Legal and Constitutional Affairs on the War Crimes Amendment Bill, 1987. The work of the Captive Nations Council of New South Wales wound down after the fall of Communism in Central and Eastern Europe.

The United Council of Migrants from Communist Dominated Europe in Australia was established in Sydney in September 1953. Representatives from various national organisations made up the Council. It sought to co-ordinate the groups’ anti-Communist activities and actions aimed at liberating their respective homelands from Communist control. The Advisory Committee was composed of Australian representatives, including State politicians, Douglas Darby and Eileen Furley, and Federal politician, W. C. Wentworth.

The Joint Baltic Committee was formed by representatives of the Estonian, Latvian and Lithuanian communities in Sydney in 1952. Estonian-born Lia Looveer was the founding Secretary and served in that position until 2002. In June 1940 the respective homelands of Looveer and her Committee members had been occupied and annexed by Soviet Russia. A year later began the mass deportation of thousands of people from Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania to remote regions of the U.S.S.R.. The Committee held an annual Commemoration Concert, organised to pay tribute to their compatriots who were deported and suffered under Soviet oppression for more than 50 years. The Committee liaised with Federal and State politicians to campaign for the defence of human rights and fundamental freedoms in, and independence of, the Baltic States. In 1986 the House of Representatives passed the Baltic Resolution which, in part, ‘reinforced Australia’s non-recognition de jure of the incorporation of the Baltic States into the Soviet Union’.

A national body for netball in Australia was founded at a meeting on August 26-27, 1927 when the All Australia Women’s Basket Ball Association was formed in conjunction with an interstate basketball carnival. Foundation Members of the association included:

• The City Girls’ Amateur Sports Association in New South Wales
• The Adelaide Women’s Basket Ball Association in South Australia
• The Melbourne Girls’ Basket Ball Association in Victoria
• The Australian Ladies’ Basket Ball Association in Queensland
• The Basket Ball Association of Perth in Western Australia

Tasmania affiliated soon after, competing in carnivals since 1933. The Australian Capital Territory and the Northern Territory became full members in 1975 and 1977 respectively.

In 1970, in accordance with the change of the game’s name to ‘netball’, the association became known as the All Australia Netball Association. In 1993, the name changed again to Netball Australia.

The Sydney University Women’s Sports Association (SUWSA) was established on August 5, 1910 when twenty-four women committed to ‘further the interests of sport among University women’ by becoming ‘full active members during the season 1911’. The action was prompted by the continual refusal of the Sydney University (men’s) Sports Union, founded in 1890, to admit the women rowers, tennis and hockey players, to their membership.

Effectively, this meant that the women had no access to facilities, including University playing fields; the men did not want any ‘Newtown Tarts’ using the Sports Union’s Oval. Consequently, the concerned women undergraduates, who included Jessie Lillingston (Street) amongst their number, decided that a united body of sportswomen, speaking as one, would have a louder voice and therefore more chance of acquiring the facilities they needed. Once incorporated, the organisation received moral and financial support from senior women in the University and some interested men amongst the lecturing staff.

From these beginnings, the SUWSA grew in membership and effectiveness, always retaining its underlying aims of :

• providing women with a democratic, balanced schedule of physical activity,
• responding to the needs of its members,
• providing facilities and equipment to support all women, not just elite athletes,
• creating opportunities for all students to exercise and maintain a healthy lifestyle.

Changing social, political and economic contexts that accompanied the new millennium made it difficult for the SUWSA to continue in its historic form. The year 2002 marked the end of the SUSWA and the beginning of a new era for Sport at Sydney University. In a meeting on 3 September 2002, members agreed to combine with the Sydney University Sports Union to create a new body called Sydney University Sport. Said the Executive Director at the time, Ann Mitchell, ‘some may have had regrets [about the decision] but combining resources was seen as the best way forward.’

The Sydney Empire Games were planned to form part of the celebrations for the sesquicentenary of the foundation of the City of Sydney, which also marked 150 years of white settlement in Australia. The celebrations went for three months between January 26 (Australia Day) and April 25 (ANZAC Day). The Games were held during the week of 5-12 February.

98 Australian men (68) and women (30) competed with athletes from fifteen Empire countries in seven sports (athletics, boxing, cycling, lawn bowls, rowing, swimming (including diving) and wrestling. Women could only compete in two of those categories (athletics and swimming). Of the 16 medals won by Australians in the pool, women won 9. Of the 29 won on the track, they won 10, 5 of them gold medals to Decima Norman. She was the unrivalled star of the games.

Gaelic Football was the preserve of men in Australia until 1994 when some Irish girls living in Sydney decided that anything the men could do they could do equally as well. With the support of their State association they organised games on an ad hoc basis and were successful to the extent that they played a demonstration game at the 1994 Australasian Championships. Much to the surprise (and delight) of spectators the game was of a very high standard and extremely well received.

As a result of the initiative in Sydney those visiting from interstate and New Zealand returned to their home bases and set out to develop women’s football locally. The development was rapid and in 1995 the first women’s football Australasian Championships were contested by New South Wales, Western Australia, Victoria and Aucklan, with New South Wales victorious. Subsequent to 1995, all affiliates have ongoing State leagues and their State teams have participated at the Championships

Presently there are 30 teams playing in Perth, Adelaide, Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane and Auckland.

St Mary’s College is a co-educational Catholic independent school situated in Gunnedah in the north-west region of New South Wales. Students are drawn from Gunnedah and the surrounding area for up to one hundred kilometres. Culturally the student body is relatively homogeneous, with the majority being from English-speaking Anglo backgrounds, with a small group of indigenous and Asian students.

Judith Carney’s St Mary’s College Gunnedah: A Profile of the First Hundred Years 1879 – 1979 presents the story of the foundation and growth of St Mary’s College, Gunnedah, and the work of the Sisters of Mercy of Gunnedah Congregation who founded, staffed and managed it during the first hundred years of its existence.