The Australian Women's Register

Dr Clare Burton was a strong advocate and activist for social change, particularly in the area of equal pay for women. Her academic research fed into policy and practical change in the workplace.

Mary Delahunty won the seat of Northcote (Legislative Assembly) for the Australian Labor Party, in a by-election in August 1998. She held the ministerial portfolios of Education, the Centenary of Federation, Planning, Arts and Women’s Affairs. Before entering politics, she was Managing Director of her own media consultancy company, also a former ABC journalist and long time member of the Journalist’s Union. She retired from politics at the state election in November 2006.

The Clare Burton Memorial Lectures are an annual event and honour the significant contribution made by the late Clare Burton, who died in 1998, to gender equity and organisational change in higher education and other areas. Since 1999 the Australian Technology Network of Universities have combined with the Equal opportunity for Women in the Workplace Agency and with state women’s advisers to host the lectures in each capital city.

EMILY’s List Australia is a national organisation aimed at getting more progressive Labor women elected to Parliament. Based on a model established in the United States in 1986 by Democrat women, EMILY’s List Australia identifies talented Labor women seeking election and supports them with funding, campaign advice, skills and information.

The founders of EMILY’s list recognised that money spent early in the campaign is often the most important support a candidate can have when heading into an election. Consequently, the ‘Emily’ in EMILY’s List, is not a name, but an acronym standing for ‘Early Money is Like Yeast’ – it makes the dough rise.

EMILY’s List provides financial, training and mentoring support to endorsed candidates in State and Federal election campaigns. It currently has over 2000 members, and Action Groups in each State and Territory.

Source: http://www.emilyslist.org.au/

A member of the Australian Labor Party, Sherryl Garbutt was elected to the seat of Greensborough in 1989 at a by-election following the death of Pauline Toner; the seat of Greensborough was abolished in the 1990 redistribution. She was the Member (ALP) of Parliament for the Bundoora electorate from 1992-2006 and held the portfolios of Environment and Conservation and Women’s Affairs from 1999-2002 and Community Services from 2002-06. She did not contest the 2006 election.

The Victorian Women’s Trust (VWT) was established in 1985 with a gift from the state government to the women of Victoria, in acknowledgement of their contribution to Victoria’s history and achievements. Now independent of government, it operates as both a philanthropic organisation and lobby group that champions the rights and entitlements of women.

The Office of Women’s Policy, located in the Department of Premier and Cabinet provides strategic policy advice to the Victorian Government on issues of concern to women.

Women Tasmania is a division of the Department of Premier and Cabinet. Previously known as the Office of the Status of Women (Tasmania) it was established in 1990 to ensure that the needs and concerns of the women of Tasmania are reflected in Government policy making.

Judith Wright expressed her love of Australia and its people in her poetry. She was also a respected writer on poetry. Later in her life Wright was well known as a conservationist and campaigner for Aboriginal rights. Wright, a descendant of a pioneering pastoralist family, began writing poetry at the age of six for her ailing mother. At the age of 14 she became a boarder at the New England Girls School, and it was during her time there that she decided to become a poet.

After completing an Arts course at the University of Sydney, Wright worked in a variety of positions including that of research officer at Queensland University, where she helped Clem Christesen to edit Meanjin.

In 1975, Wright was the first woman appointed to the Council of Australian National University as the Governor-General’s nominee. She was founder and later president of the Wildlife Preservation Society of Queensland, and member of the National Parks Association of New South Wales and the South Coast Conservation Council. Wright was a patron of many organisations including: Campaign Against Nuclear Power (Queensland); Townsville Women’s Shelter; Amnesty International (Victoria.); Wildlife Preservation Society of Queensland and the National Forests Action Council (Victoria.).

In 1991, Wright became the second Australian – after Michael Thwaites in 1940 – to receive the Queen’s gold medal for poetry.

Joan Williams concludes her obituary on Judith Wright in The Guardian on July 5, 2000 with:
“Judith Wright is not a romantic, but makes her judgement on changes in the economy and lifestyle, the growth of industry and the swing from country to city. In her own way she has taken a step further for us in the expression of Australian national, spiritual and environment values in her poetry.”

Dr Pauline Armstrong was a long time activist and her later work as a researcher and historian resulted in the publication of her historical and biographical book Frank Hardy and the making of Power without Glory (2000). She was passionately involved in the Save Our Sons movement during the Vietnam War.

The League of Women Voters Victoria began in August 1945 when three women’s organisations agreed to combine: the Victorian Women’s Citizens Movement, the League of Women Voters, and Women for Canberra. The first President of the League was Mrs Julia Rapke JP OBE.

The League aims to encourage people, young and old, to regard their vote as a privilege and a right, to be exercised seriously.

Each year there are three events held, two marking important milestones for Victorian women voters and a seminar to encourage young women to get to know women politicians:

– March 31, 1909 when Victorian women first gained the right to vote in State elections, and
– May 12, 1924 when Victorian were first able to stand for the Victorian Parliament.
– Young Women’s Leadership Seminar held at Parliament House, organised by the Parliament’s Education Office.

The Bessie Mabel Rischbeith Memorial Trust is conducted under the auspices of the League as a tribute to a remarkable Australian woman.

Lesley Vick specialises in medico-legal ethics. Using her research and policy development skills she is actively involved in the legal aspects of equality for women, reproductive health, human rights and free-thinking philosophy. She was the senior adviser to the Leader of the Australian Democrats 1985-1992 and Chief of Staff in the Leaders office from 1986.

Lesley Vick was educated at Mentone Girls Grammar; the University of Melbourne (Bachelor of Laws); and La Trobe University (Master of Arts).

Formed in 1921, became The Australian Federation of Women Voters in 1924. The Federation were early advocates of women’s rights at state, federal and international levels. The Federation was comprised of affiliated State Leagues including New South Wales, Victoria, South Australia and Western Australia.

Helen Macpherson Schutt, who was charitable in life, bequeathed the majority of her considerable wealth to Victorian charities on her death in 1951. The Helen Macpherson Schutt Trust subsequently donated to hospitals, art galleries, museums, aged care homes, educational institutions and medical research bodies throughout Victoria, according to the stipulations of its benefactor. In 2001, the Trust marked the 50th year of its operation by publishing a brief biography of its benefactor, and by changing its name to the Helen Macpherson Smith Trust in order to honour her family, and recognise the origin of her wealth.

Professor Meredith Edwards AM has enjoyed an extensive career as lecturer, researcher and policy analyst in economics. She is best known for developing policies around AUSTUDY, Child Support, HECS and long-term unemployment initiatives. She is currently Emeritus Professor, Australia and New Zealand School of Government ( ANZSOG) Institute for Governance at the University of Canberra.

Wendy Lowenstein wrote a number of the most celebrated oral histories in Australia, focusing on the lives and struggles of working class people. She is also one of Australia’s best known historians of folklore. A member of many activist organisations since the age of fifteen, Wendy contributed to both social justice and aspects of Australian history which had, until she tackled them, been largely ignored.

Edna Walling is best known for her contribution to Australian landscape architecture design. She was also a talented amateur photographer, and used the many photographs of gardens she took to illustrate the books and articles she wrote. Walling also created portrait photography.

Nancy Cato was an acclaimed author. She published several historical novels and biographies and two volumes of poetry. Cato was also a strong campaigner for environmental conservation.

Patsy Adam-Smith introduced many readers to Australian history. Of her many publications three in particular stand out: The Anzacs (1978), Australian Women at War (1984) and Prisoners of War (1992).

On Australia Day 1994 Patricia Adam-Smith was made an Officer of the Order of Australia (AO) for service to community history, particularly through the preservation of national traditions and folklore and the recording of oral histories. She also received an Order of the British Empire – Officer (Civil) (OBE) in the Queens Birthday Honours list on 14 June 1980 for her services to literature.

Dame Enid Lyons AD GBE was the first woman elected to the Australian federal Parliament, in 1943. She was also the first woman in federal Cabinet. She was appointed as a Dame Grand Cross of the Order of the British Empire (Civil) on 11 May 1937 for her public services to Australia and as a Dame of the Order of Australia (AD) on 26 January 1980.

Established in 1950, the Union of Australian Women is a left-wing social change organisation. Its aim is to work for the status and wellbeing of women across the world

Zelda D’Aprano was an active unionist and an activist in the women’s movement. She chained herself across the doors of the Commonwealth Building and later the Conciliation and Arbitration Commission in Melbourne, Victoria in protest against the inadequacy of the decision on the Equal Pay case in 1969. D’Aprano was one of the initiators of the Women’s Action Committee in 1970, and the Women’s Liberation Movement in Melbourne in 1971. She was a member of the Australian Women’s Party and was a member of the Communist Party of Australia from 1950-1971.

Kay Daniels taught and published widely in the fields of women’s, social and colonial history. Until her two-volume work Women in Australia: An Annotated Guide to Records was published in 1977, it had been generally believed that women could not be included in history as they lived within the family and there were no records of their lives in the public sphere.
She spent part of her life as a Commonwealth public servant in Canberra, contributing in areas of cultural policy and intellectual property rights.

In the late 1950s Oldmeadow, with her husband Courtney, founded Oldmeadow Booksellers. In 1974, they opened Dromkeen, which has become an internationally recognised children’s literature museum.

Nina Mikhailovna Christesen AM (née Maximoff) pioneered the study of Russian in Australia and founded the Department of Russian Language and Literature at the University of Melbourne in 1946. She remained at the head of the department until her retirement in 1977.

In the 1987 Australia Day Honours Christesen was made a Member of the Order of Australia “in recognition of service to education, particularly to the study of Slavic language and culture”.

Dr Ruth Sanger was an internationally known expert in blood grouping, who for many years worked for the Medical Research Council in London.

Ruth Sanger, the daughter of Hubert and Katharine Mary Ross (née Cameron) Sanger, obtained her Science Degree from Sydney of University in 1940. She then worked in the blood-grouping laboratory of the Sydney Red Cross Blood Transfusion Service. After the Second World War Sanger moved to London and worked for Dr Robert Race, her future husband, at the Medical Research Council. In 1950 she co-wrote Blood Groups in Man, with her husband and they released their sixth and final edition in 1975. Dr Sanger also contributed papers to medical and genetic journals. She was admitted as a fellow of Britain’s Royal Society in 1972 and in the same year she was a joint recipient of the Gairdner Foundation Award. In 1983 Dr Sanger retired as director of the British Medical Research Council, a position she had held for ten years. She was a member of the International Society of Blood Transfusion and an affiliate of similar groups in Canada, Germany, Mexico and Norway. The British Blood Transfusion Society has established the Race and Sanger Award.

Lillian Wells was the first moderator of the New South Wales synod of the Uniting Church (1977) . On 31 December 1977 she was appointed as an Officer of the Order of the British Empire (civil) for services to the church.