The Australian Women's Register

In recognition of her service to the community of Portland, Victoria, and women of Victoria in general, Mabel Hedditch was appointed OBE in 1960. Her contribution to her community included foundation membership of the Portland Branch of the Country Women’s Association of Victoria. She later served as group president, central vice-president and State president.

Mabel Hedditch also served on the Portland Town Council from 1949 -64 and was its mayor from 1956-60.

Zillah Crawcour served as a councillor for the City of Newtown, Victoria from 1957 until 1975 and was its mayor on two occasions, from 1964-65 and 1968. In 1969 she was appointed OBE. She again served as mayor of Newtown 1976-77 and died in office. A city park was named in her honour, as was the Zillah Crawcour Hall at Matthew Flinders Girls High School.

Maryann Salvetti was state winner for Queensland of the ABC Rural Woman of the year award in 1997, representing the far northern region. She has roughly thirty years as a primary producer in the region; she and her family have produced maize, peanuts, potatoes, navy beans, mangoes, and over 10 different grasses (including sugar cane) and legume crops on their mixed farming properties near Tolga on the Atherton Tablelands. She is co-managing director and marketing manager for North Queensland Tropical Seeds, a wholesale, processing and exporting company supplying seed to both the domestic and international markets.

A sugar grower for twenty years, Maryann has expanded her interest and commitment to the industry beyond the farm gate. She has serves as the chairperson of Tableland Sugar Services, a director of Tableland Canegrowers Limited, Queensland Sugar Limited, a board member of the Bureau of Sugar Experiment Stations (BSES) and Tableland Contracting Services Pty Ltd, Tanita Pty Ltd and secretary/public officer of Tableland Sugar Pty Ltd. She played a crucial role in the construction of a sugar mill on the Atherton Tablelands which opened in 1998.

Maryann’s commitment to industry and community has been recognised in a variety of forums besides in the ABC Rural Woman of the Year Award. She has been an Atherton Shire Australia Citizen of the Year and was awarded a Centenary Medal in 2001. She won a bursary that enabled her to attend the Second International Women in 1998.

Dorothy Laver served as a Councillor on the Camberwell City Council from 1969-71; 1972-75 and was mayor from 1973-74. The Dorothy Laver Reserve in East Malvern is named in her honour.

Eileen Wheeler served as councillor on the Fitzroy City Council from 1965-72-75 and was mayor from 1971-72-74.

Nicola (Nikki) Henningham is the Executive Officer for the Australian Women’s Register. She completed her PhD, a study of gender and race in Northern Queensland during the colonial period, in the Department of History at the University of Melbourne in 2000. Since then, she has taught in a wide range of undergraduate subjects, including world history, film and history and Australian history, and has conducted research for a variety of projects, including the Australian Women’s Archives Project. She has research interests in the general area of Australian women’s history, with a particular focus on women and sport, women and oral history and the relationship between the keeping of archives and the construction of history. In 2005, she received the National Archives of Australia’s Ian Mclean Award for her work in this area.

Christine Kearney was a Regional winner (Gippsland, Victoria) of the Rural Woman of the Year Award in 1994. She and her husband were dairy farmers in Dollar, Victoria. Christine was important to the establishment of rural counselling networks in her area.

Jennifer McMillan was a nominee for the ABC Rural Woman of the year Award in 1997. She and her husband ran a dairy farm near Rosedale in Gippsland, Victoria.

Dorothy Male was a nominee for the ABC Rural Woman of the year Award in 1994. She and her husband run Newdale Farm at Redmond near Albany, Western Australia.

Merilyn Plant was a nominee for the ABC Rural Woman of the year Award in 1994. She and her husband run a Poll Hereford Stud Farm near Toowoomba, in Queensland.

Nellie Ibbott was the first woman to be elected to the Heidelberg Shire Council in 1928. Heidelberg became a city in 1934 and Ibbott served as mayor from 1943-44, becoming the first woman in Victoria to hold mayoral office. In 1950 she was defeated at the council elections after serving for 22 years. In addition to her council work, she was active in the Victorian Division of the Liberal Party of Australia. In 1949 she was nominated as a candidate for pre-selection for the Senate, but was unsuccessful. She became involved in charity work, establishing the Heidelberg Benevolent Society. She was appointed MBE in 1954.

Sue Holt was a South Australian regional winner of the ABC Rural Woman if the Year award in 1994.

Sally Mitchell was the Victorian state winner of the ABC Rural Woman of the Year Award in 1994.

Carolyn Lyons was a NSW nomination for the ABC Rural Woman of the year award in 1994, for the Western Plains district.

Julie Williams has a Diploma in Agriculture and has lived most of her life in country towns and is an active member of the Women on Farms Group in Victoria. She wrote the report ‘The Invisible Farmer – A Report on Australian farm women’.

Yvonne Armstrong runs an orchard with her husband, Cliff, outside Orange in New South Wales.

Diana Beal is a farming academic who runs courses, helping farmers to learn how to manage their farms and accounts.

Lorraine Hewett runs a farm at York, Western Australia. She has vast experience and knowledge in the area of artificial insemination and has tutored many Veterinary and Agricultural Science students in the area.

Val Murphy runs a potato farm in Thorpdale, Victoria, the heart of Potato growing country.

Marjorie Bollinger was a farmer in New South Wales. After her son survived a road crash that killed two others, she decided to lobby for the reintroduction of rail freight and safer road conditions in rural areas.

Barbara Marks was Queensland winner of the ABC Rural Woman of the Year Award in 1994.

Barbara grew up in Dalby, in the Darling Downs region of southern Queensland. She worked in a small business briefly, before meeting her husband and moving to ‘Ambathalla Station’ in Charleville, Queensland. They weathered many storms together, literally and figuratively. In the 1960s the wool price collapse forced her to move into town in order to ensure the continued education of her children, while her husband, Bill, worked as a shearer.

Bess Vickers was new South Wales nominee for the ABC Rural Woman of the Year Award in 1994, for the central west district.

Val Dyer was the Northern Territory winner of the ABC Rural Woman of the Year Award in 1994.

Esther Price was a journalist contributing to rural publications, running her own promotions and design business, looking after her two children and working on her farm when the first ABC Rural Woman of the Year Award was established.

Clare McShane was a regional winner (Tasmania) of the ABC Rural Woman of the Year award in 1994.

Deborah Thiele was the inaugural national winner of the Australian Rural Woman of the Year Award in 1994. A graduate of the prestigious Roseworthy Agricultural College (now a campus of the University of Adelaide) not long after it opened its doors to women, she was the first woman to be appointed as an Agricultural Science Senior in the South Australian Education Department. A teacher with a rapidly advancing career in the Department of Education, she returned to farming when she married her husband, Anton. She is joint owner of their farm at Loxton in eastern South Australia. Since 2000 she has worked as an Agricultural Consultant and Lecturer, specialising in Farm Business Management.

In 2007, she stood for the federal electorate of Barker as the National Party Candidate. Prior to that, she stood for election to the South Australian Legislative Council. She stood again at the S.A election in 2010.

Thiele had an impressive record of community engagement at the time she won the award, and continues to maintain that record.

Ruth Paterson was Tasmania’s Rural Woman of the Year in 1994. She was the first Australian woman to chair an agricultural field day committee, which she did to extraordinary effect when she organised the Tasmanian AGFEST in the early 1990s. Eleven percent of Tasmania’s total population attended in 1994; no other field day in no other state could boast such a massive turn out.

After winning the award, Ruth took up a job with the Tasmanian Department of Primary Industries, with the aim of encouraging a rural woman’s network and advising the government on issues that effect rural women.