The Australian Women's Register

A member of the Australian Labor Party, Kath Venn was elected to the Legislative Council of the Tasmanian Parliament representing Hobart in 1976. During her period in parliament, she served as Deputy Leader of the Government in the Legislative Council for three years. She was defeated at the 1982 election.

A member of the Australian Labor Party, Gill James was elected to the House of Assembly in the Tasmanian Parliament in 1976 representing the electorate of Bass. In 1979 she became the first woman to hold the position of Deputy Speaker in the Parliament and in 1980 achieved the distinction of being appointed the first female member of the Cabinet as Minister for Public and Mental Health, Consumer Affairs and Administrative Services. She was defeated in 1986, but was elected again in 1992 and served until her retirement from Parliament in 2002.

A member of the Liberal Party, Carmel Holmes was elected to the House of Assembly of the Parliament of Tasmania representing the electorate of Denison in 1984. She served in the Parliament until her defeat at the 1986 election.

A member of the Tasmanian Greens Party, Dianne Hollister was elected to the House of Assembly of the Tasmanian Parliament representing the electorate of Braddon in 1989. She remained in the Parliament until her defeat at the 1998 election.

Jean Moore was elected to the Legislative Council of the Parliament of Tasmania as an Independent representing the electorate of Hobart in 1992. A short-term Member of Parliament, she was defeated at the 1994 election.

A member of the Liberal Party, Suzanne Napier was elected to the House of Assembly of the Parliament of Tasmania representing the electorate of Bass in 1992. She was re-elected in 1996, 1998, 2002 and 2006. During her parliamentary career she has held a range of ministerial portfolios, served as Deputy Premier from 1996-98 and as Leader of the Opposition from 1999-2001.

A member of the Liberal Party, Denise Swan was elected to the House of Assembly in the Parliament of Tasmania representing the electorate of Denison in 1995. She served in the Parliament until her defeat at the 2002 election.

Susan Smith was elected to the Legislative Council of the Tasmanian Parliament as an Independent representing Leven (abolished 1999), in 1997 then Montgomery. She is currently serving as the President of the Legislative Council, the first woman to hold this position.

A member of the Australian Labor Party, Lin Thorp was elected to the Legislative Council of the Parliament of Tasmania representing the electorate of Rumney in 1999. She was re-elected in 2005. She currently holds the positions of Minister for Human Services and Deputy Leader of the Upper House.

A member of the Australian Labor Party, Allison Ritchie was the youngest person ever elected to the Legislative Council of the Tasmanian Parliament in 2001. She represented the electorate of Pembroke until her resignation from Parliament in June 2009. During that period she served as Minister for Planning and Workplace Relations for three months in 2008, but resigned her portfolio in November of that year on the basis of poor health.

A member of the Australian Labor Party, Kathryn Hay was the first woman of Aboriginal descent to be elected to the Legislative Assembly of the Tasmanian Parliament in 2002. Representing the electorate of Bass she served as Parliamentary secretary to the Premier, but retired from Parliament in 2006.

Norma Jamieson was elected as an Independent to the Legislative Council of the Parliament of Tasmania representing the electorate of Mersey in 2003.

Tania Rattray was elected as an Independent member representing the electorate of Apsley to the Legislative Council of the Parliament of Tasmania in 2004. Before her election to Parliament she served in local government as Deputy Mayor of Dorset.

Ruth Forrest was elected as an Independent member to the Legislative Council of the Tasmanian Parliament, representing the electorate of Murchison in 2005.

A member of the Australian Labor Party, Lisa Singh was elected to the House of Assembly of the Parliament of Tasmania representing the electorate of Denison in 2006. She held the Ministerial portfolios of Corrections and Consumer Protections, Workplace Relations and Minister assisting the Premier on Climate Change. She was defeated at the state election, which was held in March 2010, but was elected to the Senate of the Australian Parliament in August 2010 as a representative for Tasmania.

Vanessa Goodwin is the Tasmanian Attorney General and Minister for Justice, Minister for Corrections, Minister for the Arts and Leader of the Government in the Legislative Council. She was elected to the Legislative Council as the Member for Pembroke in August 2009 and was the Shadow Attorney General and Shadow Minister for Corrections from September 2009 until the State Election in March 2014, after which she was appointed to her current roles.

Ida McAulay was elected president of the Tasmanian Women’s Suffrage Association on its inauguration in 1903, a few days before Tasmanian women were granted the franchise. She remained president until 1905. After the achievement of the franchise, the Association, later renamed the Tasmanian Women’s Political Association, focussed on lobbying for improvements in girls’ education.

A retired Uniting Church Minister, Dorothy McRae-McMahon was a former Minister of the Pitt Street, Sydney Church, which was renowned for its work in human rights and local activism. She received recognition for her work with the award of the Australian Government Peace Medal in 1987 and in 1988 with the Australian Human Rights Medal. In 1997, she came out as a lesbian at the National Assembly of the Uniting Church in Perth and resigned from her position later in the year, citing the focus on her sexuality, which she felt was affecting the church.

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.

A member of the Liberal Party of Australia, Elise Archer was elected as a Member for Denison in the House of Assembly at the Tasmanian state election, which was held in March 2010. She served as an Alderman on the Hobart City Council from October 2007 until April 2010.

A member of the Liberal Party of Australia, Jacquie Petrusma was elected to the House of Assembly of the Parliament of Tasmania as a Member for Denison at the election which was held in March 2010. She had previously stood as a Senate candidate at the 2004 federal election representing the Family First Party. She was a candidate again for the Senate at the 2007 federal election as a member of the Liberal Party, but was unsuccessful.

A member of the Australian Labor Party, Bec. White was elected as a Member for the electorate of Lyons in the Tasmanian House of Assembly, at the election, which was held in March 2010.

A member of the Australian Labor Party, and former state secretary of the Australian Manufacturing Workers Union, Anne Urquhart was elected to the Senate of the Australian Parliament as a representative for Tasmania at the federal election, which was held on 21 August 2010.

Jane Bennett was winner of the Australian Rural Woman of the Year Award in 1997.

Gwendolyn Adams was widely regarded as a role model and mentor for women in agriculture. She was a leader of the Tasmanian Women in Agriculture Movement and had a special interest in assisting women on the land who had been widowed. She was a Regional Winner (Tasmania) of the ABC Rural Woman of the Year Award in 1995.

Gwendolyn began her career in agriculture in 1969 when she took over the running of the family property ‘Leighlands’ near Perth in northern Tasmania. She and her husband successfully built the business and became advocates of environmental management while doing so. She endeavoured to plant 1000 trees a year for over two decades.

She was an advocate for agriculture and landcare through a range of community and industry groups, including the Tasmanian Landcare Association, Tasmanian Women in Agriculture, Greening Australia, and the Tasmanian Farmers and Graziers Wool Council. In 1998, she received a bursary to attend the Second International Conference on Women in Agriculture in Washington D.C. In 2000, she was a member of the committee for the Fourth Women on Farms Gathering held at Poatina.

Guilia Jones was elected to the ACT Legislative Assembly representing the Canberra Liberals in the electorate of Molonglo at the election which was held in October 2012. She was subsequently elected in the electorate of Murrumbidgee and served in the Assembly until June 2022. Jones was the deputy leader of the Liberal Party in the ACT from October 2020 to January 2022.