The Australian Women's Register

Lorna Hayter studied agriculture at the University of Sydney. In 1927 she joined the New South Wales Department of Agriculture. During World War II Hayter was a member of the Women’s Australian National Services, and became Assistant Controller with the Australian Army Women’s Service. Later she hosted the Australian Broadcasting Commission weekly national program Farm and Home and became women’s editor of the Land Newspaper. On 31 December 1979, Lorna Hayter was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire for services to agriculture and the community.

Ann Symonds was a member of the New South Wales Legislative Council from 1982 to 1998.

Chris McDiven is a former teacher, now a business woman and State President, New South Wales Division, of the Liberal Party.

Vera Jennings was among the first group of 58 students to graduate in the Arts Honours course at the University of Melbourne in 1920-21.

Jennings then joined the English Department as a tutor (1929-) before becoming an Acting Lecturer (March 1942-), a Lecturer (1947-) and finally a Senior Lecturer (1951-). She retired on 28 February 1965.

A South African by birth, Gaye Tennent received her later education in London and at the University of Melbourne. Early crippled by poliomyelitis, she graduated B.A. (Hons) in 1930 and M.A. in English with a Dip. Ed. In 1934. She became a school teacher and later a tutor at Janet Clarke Hall, Vice-Principal at the Women’s College and tutor and lecturer in the University English Department.

Vida Goldstein ran for the Australian Senate in 1903. Though she was not elected, she was the first woman to be nominated for the Australian Parliament.

Spence ran as a South Australian delegate to the Federal Constitutional Convention in 1897, the first woman political candidate in Australia. She was also active in the Women’s Suffrage League and the South Australian National Council of Women.

Joan Bielski was a long time activist for equality for women in employment, education and public life. A founding member of the Council for Civil Liberties, she was also a foundation member of Women’s Electoral Lobby (WEL) in 1972 and continued her active involvement throughout her life.

In 1988 she was awarded the Medal of the Order of Australia for her services to women and girls education. In 2004 she was awarded the Order of Australia for her services to women in politics and public life.

Joan Bielski was a long time supporter of the National Foundation for Australian Women.

Lisa Roberts is an exhibiting artist, community artist and interactive publisher. She has created films and animations, produced exhibitions, and been involved in several performances over a long career beginning in the early 1970s.

Born and raised in Alice Springs in the Northern Territory, Patricia (Pat) Turner ‘s long association with Canberra began with a temporary position with the Public Service Board, leading to the Social Policy Branch of the Department of Aboriginal Affairs (DAA) in 1979. Joining the Australian Public Service (APS) in Alice Springs as a switchboard operator in the Native Affairs Department , she moved to Canberra in 1978, joining the senior executive ranks of the public service in 1985, when she became Director of the DAA in Alice Springs, N.T. (1985-86). Pat then became First Assistant Secretary, Economic Development Division in the DAA, and in 1989, Deputy Secretary. She worked as Deputy Secretary in the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet during 1991-92, with oversight of the establishment of the Council for Aboriginal Reconciliation and with responsibility for the Office of the Status of Women among other matters. Between 1994 -1998, Pat was CEO of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission, which made her the most senior Indigenous government official in Australia. After stints in senior positions at the Department of Health and at Centrelink, Pat Turner left the APS and Canberra in 2006, returning to Alice Springs with her mother to live. There, she has continued to advocate on the behalf of indigenous people, including taking on what she described as ‘one of the best working experiences of my life’ as CEO of National Indigenous Television (2006 -2010). (Interview) Other memorable experiences include the period when she was Festival Director of the 5th Festival of Pacific Arts in Townsville, Queensland (1987 -88) and when she held the Chair of Australian Studies at Georgetown University in Washington DC (1998-99). Turner holds a Masters Degree in Public Administration from the University of Canberra where she was awarded the University prize for Development Studies.

Audrey and her husband Jack D. Blake were prominent members the Communist Party of Australia. Both were particularly vocal during the Liberal Party’s assault on the CPA and Jack Blake wrote numerous articles and papers on the Cold War. Audrey was the first Secretary of the Eureka Youth League when it was formed during the Second World War.

Margaret Manion was a lecturer (1972-1978) before becoming a Professor of Fine Arts at the University of Melbourne. She has been an Emeritus Professor since 1995. She was the first woman chair of the Academic Board from 1987-1988, and Pro-Vice-Chancellor from 1985-1988. Loreto Order SL, then Chair, appointed March 1979. She was awarded an AO in 1989.

A member of the Australian Labor Party, Jenny Macklin was elected to the House of Representatives of the Australian Parliament representing the electorate of Jagajaga, Victoria in 1996. She was re-elected in 1998, 2001, 2004, 2007, 2010 and 2013. On 22 November 2001, Macklin was elected unopposed as Deputy Leader of the Federal Opposition and retained that position until November 2006. She was Shadow Minister for Employment, Education, Training and Science. With the election of a Labor Government in 2007, she took on the ministerial portfolio of Families, Housing, Community Service and Indigenous Affairs. She continued to hold that position after the 2010 election. Her final portfolios before the defeat of the Labor government in September 2013, were Disability Reform; Families, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs.

On June 24, 2010, Julia Gillard became the first woman Prime Minister of the Commonwealth of Australia and retained her position after the federal election, which was held on 21 August 2010. She led a minority Labor Government, supported by a member of the Greens party and three Independents. She lost the prime ministership on 27 June 2013, when Kevin Rudd challenged her for the position and won. She retired from parliament in August 2013.

Her career in parliamentary politics began when she was elected Member of the House of Representatives for Lalor (Victoria) in 1998 and re-elected in 2001, 2004, 2007 and 2010. She became Deputy Leader of the Opposition (ALP) in December 2006. On the election of the Labor Government in November 2007, she assumed the position of Deputy Prime Minister and took on the portfolios of Employment and Workplace Relations, Education and Social Inclusion.

In 2017, Julia Gillard was made a Companion in the General Division of the Order of Australia ‘for eminent service to the Parliament of Australia, particularly as Prime Minister, through seminal contributions to economic and social development, particularly policy reform in the areas of education, disability care, workplace relations, health, foreign affairs and the environment, and as a role model to women.’

Of Lebanese descent, Marie Bashir became the first woman to be appointed Governor of New South Wales in March 2001. She was succeeded in the role in 2014 by General The Hon. David Hurley AC, DSC.

Bashir’s appointment was welcomed by both sides of politics and commended as “an inspired choice” because Bashir would be “a powerful advocate for the powerless”. In that role, Bashir departed from past practice. For Australian aborigines, Bashir launched an indigenous health initiative to support indigenous medicine and nursing students as well as supporting the progress of reconciliation. On the very day of her inauguration, Bashir agreed to become Patron of the Gay and Lesbian Counselling Service, which addresses mental and social issues in the LGBT community.

Prior to her appointment she had a long and distinguished career in medicine. She was Professor of Psychiatry at the University of Sydney. Bashir became an Officer of the Order of Australia (AO) in 1988 for her service to medicine, particularly in the field of adolescent mental heath. In 2001, the year she was sworn in as Governor, she was appointed a Companion of the Order of Australia (AC).

Throughout her career, Bashir combined work and family life. She was nominated Mother of the Year in 1971. She was married to Sir Nicholas Shehadie AC OBE, who passed away in 2018.

Pioneering Australian feminist Dr Anne Summers AO is a best-selling author and journalist with a long career in politics, the media, business and the non-government sector in Australia, Europe and the United States. Anne is a leader of the generation and the movement that has improved women’s rights in Australia. Her first book Damned Whores and God’s Police changed the way Australia viewed women. Her contribution has earned her community respect: she has received five honorary doctorates and in 1989 became an Officer of the Order of Australia (AO) for service to journalism and women’s affairs. She won a Walkley Award for journalism in the same year.

Summers is a former editor of Good Weekend who regularly writes an opinion column for the Sydney Morning Herald and The Age. She was a founder of the important feminist journal, Refractory Girl, in the 1970s.

Model Jo Bailey co-hosted the television game show Sale of the Century from 1991 to 1993. She married Carlton football player Stephen ‘SOS’ Silvagni in 1996, and has two sons – Jack and Ben.

An Australian media personality, Libbi Gorr invented comic interviewer ‘Elle McFeast’ on ABC television’s Sweaty.

Janine Burke was a founding member of Lip, an Australian journal devoted to feminism and the performing and visual arts. She curated a number of exhibitions including Australian Women Artists: One Hundred Years, 1840-1940 (1975); Joy Hester (1981); and The Eye of the Beholder: Albert Tucker’s Photographs (1998). Burke is the author of several books and has been a board member of the Heide Museum of Modern Art since 1997. She received the Victorian Premier’s Award for fiction in 1987.

Anne Boyd was appointed Professor and Head of Department of Music at the University of Sydney in 1990. Over twenty-five years earlier, in 1963, Boyd had commenced her studies in music at the same university with Peter Sculthorpe as her principal composition teacher.

Boyd was awarded a Commonwealth Overseas Scholarship in 1969 and, under the supervision of Wilfrid Mellers and Bernard Rands, she prepared a portfolio of compositions for her Doctor of Philosophy degree at the University of York. In 1972 she was appointed Lecturer in Music at the University of Sussex, and held the position for five years. She returned to Australia in 1977 as a freelance composer before becoming Reader and founding Head of the Department of Music at the University of Hong Kong in 1981.

Boyd is a recipient of many awards including in 1996 an AM in the Order of Australia for service to music as a composer and educator. She featured in Facing the Music, a documentary about the University of Sydney’s Department of Music.

McLucas was elected as a Senator for Queensland in 1998. She trained as a Primary School teacher at the Townsville College of Advanced Education, and was the first woman President of the Townsville CAE Student Union in 1977. Her teaching career was mainly in northern Queensland. McLucas was an active member of the Queensland Teachers’ Union in 1977 and was also the Secretary of the Cairns and District Provincial Trades and Labor Council from 1985-1988. In 1995 she was elected as a councillor for the Cairns City Council and represented the people of Division Seven until taking up her Senate seat on 1 July 1999. She was re-elected in 2004 and 2010. She currently holds the positions of Parliamentary Secretary for Regional Queensland and for Disabilities and Carers.

Lawrence became Australia’s first woman State Premier (WA) on 12 February 1990. She began her parliamentary career by winning the seat of Subiaco for the Australian Labor Party in 1986.
She entered Federal politics on 12 March 1994, as the Member for Fremantle, and was appointed Minister for Human Services and Health and Minister Assisting the Prime Minister for the Status of Women on 25 March 1994 until 11 March 1996. On 23 November 2001, Lawrence was appointed Shadow Minister for Reconciliation, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Affairs, the Arts, and the Status of Women.

Lawrence is a supporter of numerous organisations and is Patron of the Western Australia Netball Association and a Foundation Committee Member of EMILY’S List.

She retired from the Australian Parliament at the 2007 general election, which was held in November 2007.

Jennie George, who is of Russian and Italian heritage and came to Australia when she was three years old, was the first woman to be appointed President of the Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU) in 1996. In November 2001, she became a Federal Member of Parliament when she successfully contested the seat of Throsby for the Australian Labor Party. She was re-elected in 2004 and 2007, but retired at the 2010 election, which was held on 21 August.

While completing her BA in Communications (Hons) at the University of Technology Sydney, Plibersek was women’s officer for the UTS Students Association. She campaigned against sexual harassment and instituted a number of measures to improve safety on campus. Before entering parliament, she worked with the Domestic Violence Unit and the New South Wales Ministry for the Status of Women. She was an electorate officer for Senator Bruce Childs and later Senator George Campbell. Plibersek was elected to Federal Parliament as the Member for Sydney in 1998, was re-elected in 2001, 2004, 2007 and 2010. She is currently a member of the Ministry in the Gillard Government.

The Northern Territory gained their first female representative in Federal Parliament in 1998 when Patricia Crossin was chosen to replace the Hon. R. L. Collins, following his resignation. She was re-elected in 1998, 2001, 2004, 2007 and 2010. Prior to entering Parliament Crossin worked as Branch Secretary for the National Tertiary Education Union (NT-Branch) from 1996-1998 after spending six years as the Union’s Industrial Officer. Between 1978-1989 she worked as a primary school teacher.

In the Queen’s Birthday list (8 June 1968) Dorothy Tangney became the first Western Australian born woman to be appointed Dames Commander of the British Empire for services to the Western Australia Parliament. She was a senator for Western Australia in the Senate of the Australian Parliament from 1943 until she retired in 1968.

Margaret Blackwood graduated from the University of Melbourne with a BSc in 1938 and MSc in 1940. During the Second World War she served with the Women’s Auxiliary Australian Air Force and then was granted an ex-service postgraduate scholarship for Cambridge, where she gained a PhD for her work in plant genetics. In 1951 Blackwood returned to Melbourne and was a senior lecturer at the University of Melbourne until 1974. She was then elected a member of the University Council and in 1980 became the first female Deputy Chancellor. She held both these positions until her retirement in 1983. She was appointed as a Member of the British Empire in 1964 for work in botany and was appointed a Dame (Order of the British Empire – Dames Commander) for her services to education in 1980.