The Australian Women's Register

The Women’s Electoral Lobby, Western Australia (WEL WA), was established in 1972 and become an official organisation the following year. A constitution was drawn up in 1974 and amended in 1980 when WEL became an incorporated body. WEL WA was officially shut down in 2008.

Women’s Electoral Lobby Victoria was established in Melbourne on 27 February 1972 when Beatrice Faust organised a survey of candidates for election, alongside ten other women.

Florence Marjorie Hughes was born in 1898 in Malvern, Victoria. After graduating from the University of Melbourne in 1922, Hughes worked at the Alfred Hospital in Melbourne. She left Australia for the United Kingdom in 1927 working at many hospitals and traveling to Italy before returning home. Records indicate she must have travelled again to the United Kingdom to receive her Diploma of Anaesthetics in 1939 or 1940.

Hughes continued to work at the Alfred until around 1942. After this year, Hughes entered into private practice on Collins Street in Melbourne. Her contributions to anaesthetics are relatively unknown, however, she gained postgraduate qualifications which enabled her to share new knowledge in Australia.

Founded in July 1988, the South Australian Women’s Suffrage League was at the forefront of the campaign for womens’s right to vote.

The Muslim Women’s National Network Australia represents a network of Muslim women’s organisations and individuals throughout Australia.

Women have been active in seeking protection of the environment since before the Federation of Australia in 1901.

To read more about women in the environment movement visit our sister publication The Encyclopedia of Women and Leadership in Twentieth-Century Australia.

The Women’s Hospital was granted the prefix ‘Royal’ in 1954, becoming the Royal Women’s Hospital.

After suffering an electoral defeat in the 1970s, the Australian Labor Party recognised the need to attract more women to the party. Thus, in 1981 ‘the party endorsed a quota requiring that women hold 25 per cent of all internal party positions’ and in 1994 the party also adopted an Affirmative Action Rule, with the aim of ‘achieving preselection of women for 35 per cent of winnable seats at all parliamentary elections by 2002.’

In 1996 the Australian Labor Party established the National Labor Women’s Network and, in the same year, EMILY’s list was formed by a group of Labor women.

‘Between 1994 and 2010 the preselection of women candidates increased from 14.5 per cent to 35.6 per cent.’ In addition, in January 2012 the party has adopted a 40:40:20 quota system, meaning 40 per cent of seats must be filled by women.

Formed in 1992, the Australian Greens adopted gender equity as a founding principle. At the 2010 federal election, the Greens ‘reached a record high for any party… with women comprising 71.4 per cent or more than two-thirds of their total candidates.’

Since its formation in 1944, the Liberal Party has ‘inherited a tradition of women’s political activism’ and offered a women’s policy statement in both the 1946 and 1949 elections.

A Federal Women’s Committee was established in 1945 and incorporated in the party’s constitution the following year. Since then, ‘The Committee has had representation on the Federal Executive… and the party’s federal Constitution requires the vice-president of the party to be a woman.’

Women with Disabilities Australia (WWDA) is the peak body for women with all types of disabilities in Australia. It is the only organisation of its kind in Australia and one of only a very small number internationally.

WWDA represents more than 2 million disabled women and girls in Australia. The organisation is run by women with disabilities, for women with disabilities, and it operates as a transnational human rights and systemic advocacy organisation.

Women with Disabilities ACT (WWDACT) is a systemic advocacy and peer support organisation for women, girls, feminine identifying and non-binary people with disability in the ACT region.

The WWDACT was established in 1995 and since then has worked with government and non-government organisations to improve the status and lives of women with disabilities in the area.

Women with Disabilities Victoria (WDV) is an organisation of women with disabilities, for women with disabilities.

The goals of WDV are to influence government and policy, engage and empower women with disabilities and to educate and build the capacity of service systems and organisations to be accessible to women with disabilities.

‘The Gladys Elphick Awards celebrate the life achievements of the late Aunty Gladys Elphick and her fellow members of the Council of Aboriginal Women of South Australia. The awards acknowledge the contemporary achievements of Aboriginal women who work tirelessly to advance the status of Aboriginal people through a wide range of mediums.’

The Central Australian Aboriginal Women’s Choir (CAAWC) was established in 2010 by combining the small choirs of six remote Indigenous communities in central Australia to form one large choir.

Australian women have had an active role in Australian politics since Henrietta Dugdale formed the first Australian women’s suffrage society in 1884. Just over ten years later, in 1895, South Australian women became the first Australian women eligible to vote. When the Commonwealth Franchise Act was passed in 1902, all women (except for Aboriginal women) were eligible to vote for, and sit in, Federal Parliament.

In 1921 Edith Cowan became the first woman to be elected into any Australian Parliament when she was elected to the Legislative Assembly as a member for West Perth. In 1943, Dame Enid Lyons and Senator Dorothy Tangney became the first women elected into the Commonwealth parliament, with Lyons to the House of Representatives as a member of the United Australia Party and Tangney to the Senate as a member of the Australian Party.

As of January 2019, there are 45 (30%) women in the lower house and 30 (39.47%) in the upper house, meaning women only make up a third of all people in the Commonwealth Parliament.

Methodist Ladies’ College (MLC), Kew, is one of the country’s leading independent girls’ schools.

According to their website, MLC ‘was founded in 1882 as a ‘modern school of the first order’ with buildings that formed ‘a collegiate institution for girls unsurpassed in the colonies’.’ Founded by the Wesleyan Methodists, the goal was to provide ‘a high-class Christian education for girls’ which was resemblant to that available to boys at that time.

Kerry Snell is a campaigner for equitable access to mainstream services and ensuring that people with disability are well represented through diverse leadership.

Read an interview with Kerry Snell in the online exhibition Redefining Leadership.

Louise Bannister has been a trail blazer since birth. Born at 26 weeks in Armidale in NSW, she was described as a ‘Miracle Midget’ by the media when she eventually left hospital. Her first years of life were marked by bouts of rigorous physiotherapy which seemed like torture to a toddler. Thanks to the determination of her parents, all Lou’s education was in mainstream public schools.

Lou’s realisation of the power of advocacy was awakened during a year at high school in Seattle where she met a fellow student with complex disabilities whose spirited approach to changing the world served as a role model, and imbued Lou with a sense of disability pride.

Several years after transferring to Canberra in 1991, WWDACT recruited Lou as a research officer to undertake the first-ever survey of women with disabilities in the ACT. A myriad of roles and project work followed, building her prominence in the community. She is now a much awarded leader in the ACT.

An effervescent personality is a key factor in how Lou interacts with everyone. She believes that a supportive style of leadership is more effective than anything hierarchical. Her feminist ideals are founded in a commitment to equity, and a belief that a diverse group of women can work together, to achieve a common goal.

Read an interview with Louise Bannister in the online exhibition Redefining Leadership.