The Australian Women's Register

Helen Coonan is a former Australian politician, who was a Liberal member of the Australian Senate representing New South Wales from July 1996 to August 2011. On 26 November 2001, she was appointed Minister for Revenue and Assistant Treasurer in the Howard Government. She was re-elected in 2001 and 2007. From 2004-07, she served as Minister for Communications, Information Technology and the Arts.

Since leaving politics in 2011, Coonan has transitioned into the corporate world, and vouches for the seminal importance of the law, including legal training, legal practise and legal experience as a common thread underpinning her capacity to perform across a diverse professional and public landscape for a very long time.

Go to ‘Details’ below to read a reflective essay written by Helen Coonan for the Trailblazing Women and the Law Project.

A member of the Liberal Party of Australia, Danna Vale was elected to the House of Representatives as the Member for Hughes, New South Wales in 1996. She became Minister for Veterans’ Affairs on 26 November 2001 and Minister Assisting the Minister for Defence from 2001 until 2003. From 1984 until 1988 Minister Vale was a full-time wife, mother and student. In 1988 she began practising as a solicitor and held this position until entering parliament.
She did not contest the 2010 federal election.

Bronwyn Bishop, Minister for Aged Care (1998-2001), was elected MHR (Lib) for Mackellar, New South Wales on 26 March 1994.

Janice Crosio was the first woman Cabinet Minister of New South Wales, and first woman to serve on the executive at all three levels of government – local, state and federal. She was elected to the House of Representatives (ALP) for the seat of Prospect, New South Wales, in 1990 and retired in 2004.

She was appointed a Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) on 30 December 1978 for services to local government.

Jill Griffiths Hall has enjoyed a distinguished career in local, state and federal politics in New South Wales, representing the Australian Labor Party. She has held the federal seat of Shortland since 1998.

A member of the Australian Labor Party, Karin MacDonald was elected to the Legislative Assembly for the Australian Capital Territory, representing the electorate of Brindabella, in 2001. She was re-elected in 2004.

A member of the Canberra Liberals, Vicki Dunne was elected to the Legislative Assembly for the Australian Capital Territory representing the electorate of Ginninderra in 2001. She was re-elected in 2004 and 2008 and 2012. She currently holds the position of Speaker in the Assembly.

Kelly Hoare was elected MHR (ALP) for Charlton, New South Wales in 1998.

Ethel Turner’s first book, Seven Little Australians, was published in 1894. Translated into ten languages, it was made into a stage play in 1915 and a film in 1939. In 1953 it was televised in Britain, and in 1973 and 1975 by the Australian Broadcasting Commission.

Carmel Tebbutt was a very successful ALP politician who made the transfer from the upper to the lower house of the New South Wales parliament. However, before she entered state politics Carmel was a councillor in the Marrickville Council from 1993- 1998 and their Deputy Mayor from 1995-1998. She entered state politics when she was appointed to the New South Wales Legislative Council in 1998 and subsequently re-elected in 2003. During this time she served as Minister for Juvenile Justice (1999-2003), Minister for Ageing, Disability Services and Minister for Community Services (2003 -2005) and Minister for Education and Training (2005-2007). Carmel Tebbutt resigned from the Legislative Council in August 2005 to run for the seat of Marrickville in the Legislative Assembly by-election, which she won. She was then appointed Minister for Education and Training (2005 – 2008). In 2008 she became the state’s first female Deputy Premier and subsequently held the portfolios of Climate Change and Environment and in the Keneally Government, that of Health Minister. She retired from parliament at the 2015 election.

Sandra Nori served as the New South Wales Minister for Small Business and Minister for Tourism. She is the Member (ALP) for Port Jackson.

Helen Leonard worked with numerous women’s organisations including the Nursing Mothers’ Association (now the Australian Breastfeeding Association), Women’s Electoral Lobby, National Women’s Media Centre, CAPOW!, the National Breast Cancer Foundation, the National Foundation for Australian Women and WESNET. As a lobbyist and photographer in the women’s movement from the 1970s onward, she recorded the activities of many women’s organisations, building an extraordinary library of photographs and recordings.

Patricia Dixon was the first aboriginal woman elected to local parliament in New South Wales, and the first Aboriginal woman federal candidate for the ALP.

Grand daughter of Ethel Turner who complied The Diaries of Ethel Turner in 1979.

E. Jean Curlewis was the daughter of Ethel Turner. Before passing away she wrote a number of books including The Sunshine Family: A Book of Nonsense for Girls and Boys, with her mother.

A member of the Australian Labor Party, Clare Martin gained the distinction of becoming the first Labor and first female Chief Minister of the Northern Territory in 2001. She was elected to the Legislative Assembly of the Northern Territory at a by-election for the seat of Fannie Bay in 1995. This seat was formerly held by the Chief Minister Marshall Perron, member of the Country Liberal Party. She was re-elected in 1997, assumed the leadership of the ALP in 1999 and went on to win the 2001 election. In addition to her role as Chief Minister, she held the ministerial portfolios of Treasurer, Arts and Museums, Young Territorians, Women’s Policy, Senior Territorians, Communications, Science and Advanced Technology. She won the 2005 election with an increased majority, but resigned from Parliament in November 2007.

Sydney-born journalist Geraldine Brooks worked as a Middle-East correspondent during the 1980s and early 1990s.

The Kibble Awards for Women Writers were established by Nita May Dobbie in memory of her aunt Nita Bernice Kibble. They recognise female writers who have published fiction or nonfiction classified as ‘life writing’.

There are two Kibble awards; the major Kibble Award, worth $20,000 and the Dobbie encouragement award, valued at $2500.

In 2008 Adelaide-based Carol Lefevre, who left school at 16 to sing in a rock band, won the Kibble Award for her first novel, Nights in the Asylum. Karen Foxlee, a nurse-turned-author from Gympie in Queensland, snared the Dobbie encouragement award for her debut work, The Anatomy of Wings.

This award was established in 1992 in memory of Nita May Dobbie, a librarian and research officer.

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.”

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.

Recognised as a National Living Treasure, Margaret Whitlam achieved public figure status after 1972 as the wife of Labor Prime Minister Gough Whitlam. She was outspoken on many issues affecting women and was appointed to the National Advisory Committee for International Women’s Year in 1974.

Adela Pankhurst was a feminist and pacifist whose political affiliations shifted from communism to strong anti-communism over her lifetime of activism. Born in England, the daughter of Emmeline Pankhurst, Adela was involved with the British suffrage movement from her teenage years and then the Women’s Social and Political Union which was founded by her mother and sisters in 1904. She later became estranged from her family and moved to Melbourne in 1914 partly for health reasons. Once there she worked with Vida Goldstein and the Women’s Political Association and campaigned against conscription particularly with the Women’s Peace Army. She also joined the Victorian Socialist Party. She married Tom Walsh, a fellow anti-conscriptionist, in 1917. After the war they moved to Sydney and had five children. They were foundation members of the Communist Party of Australia, but soon withdrew. Adela’s evolving anti-communism became starkly apparent when, in 1928, she founded the Australian Women’s Guild of Empire. Pankhurst used this conservative patriotic organisation as a platform to advocate the need for industrial cooperation, and she frequently spoke out against strikes. She ended her public life in 1943 with her husband’s death.

Emily Creaghe was the only woman member of Ernest Favenc’s exploring party across Northern Australia in 1883.

Harriet Scott was educated by her father, A.W. Scott, and acquired a considerable knowledge of Australian plants, animals and insects. Her paintings earned high praise from the Entomological Society and she was elected, like her sister Helena, as an honorary member.

Caroline Atkinson was home-educated in New South Wales, a keen student of natural history and an accomplished botanical illustrator. She was also a populariser of science and published in the Sydney Morning Herald and the Horticultural Magazine.