The Australian Women's Register

Madonna Blyth began playing hockey when she was five years old. She went on to become captain of the Australian women’s field hockey team, the Hockeyroos, in 2009.

Jodie Kenny was a member of the gold medal-winning Australian women’s hockey team at the Commonwealth Games in 2014.

Competing at her first ever Olympic Games, Taylor McKeown claimed a silver medal in the 4x100m medley relay.

Roslyn Gay Atkinson AO is a Justice of the Supreme Court of Queensland, having been appointed to that position in 1998. In 2002 she also became the Chairperson of the Queensland Law Reform Commission, and served in that role until her retirement in 2013.

Maddie Groves began swimming when she was eight years old. She went on to become the national 200m butterfly champion in 2013, 2014 and 2015 and was a member of the gold medal-winning Australian freestyle relay team at the Commonwealth Games in 2014. She won a silver medal at the Rio de Janeiro Olympic Games in the 200m butterfly event.

Justice Margaret McMurdo AC is the President of the Court of Appeal of the Supreme Court of Queensland. She was the first woman appointed as the presiding judge of an appellate court in Australia.

McMurdo was born in 1954 in Brisbane, the youngest of six children born to Gina, a homemaker, and Joe, a commercial law solicitor and ultimately senior partner at Thynne & Macartney. She attended New Farm State School and Brisbane Girls Grammar School (1967 – 1971) before studying law at the University of Queensland. During her university years, she volunteered at the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Legal Service. She graduated with a Bachelor of Laws in 1975.

On 16 December 1976, McMurdo was admitted as a barrister of the Supreme Court of Queensland. She worked in the Public Defender’s Office (1976-89), holding the office of assistant public defender (1978-89). McMurdo then practised at the private bar in Brisbane (1989-91), holding a commission to prosecute. She was a part-time member of the Criminal Justice Commission Misconduct Tribunal (1990-91). McMurdo was a founding committee member (1978-82) and then president (1980-81) of the Women Lawyers Association and a founding member of the Department of Children’s Services Serious Offenders Review Panel (1978-83). McMurdo was appointed a judge of the District Court of Queensland on 29 January 1991, being the first woman to be appointed to the court. She also served as a judge of the Children’s Court of Queensland from 1993.

On 30 July 1998, McMurdo was appointed a judge of the Supreme Court of Queensland and the second president of the Court of Appeal. She was the first woman appointed as the presiding judge of an appellate court in Australia. McMurdo was appointed a Companion of the Order of Australia in 2007 and awarded the Centenary Medal in 2003. She was awarded the Queensland Law Society’s Agnes McWhinney Award in 2006. She was awarded the degree of Doctor of the University by Griffith University (2000) and by the Queensland University of Technology (2009). McMurdo was awarded an honorary Doctorate of Laws of the University of Queensland (2012). She has also served as a trustee of Brisbane Girls Grammar School (1994-98) and a member of the council of Griffith University (from 2003).

On 23 January 1976, McMurdo married Philip Donald McMurdo who later became a judge of the Supreme Court of Queensland. They have four adult children.

Catherine Ena “Cate” Holmes, AC, assumed the office of Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Queensland on 11 September 2015.She holds the degrees of B.Econ (ANU), B.A. (Hons), LLB, LLM (Advanced) (UQ).

Holmes was admitted as a solicitor in 1982 and as a barrister in 1984, taking silk in 1999. While in practice, Justice Holmes was at various times a part time member of the Anti-Discrimination Tribunal, Deputy President of the Queensland Community Corrections Board and, during 1998 and 1999, Counsel assisting the Forde Commission of Inquiry into Child Abuse. Her Honour was appointed to the Supreme Court of Queensland in March 2000. She was the judge overseeing the Court’s criminal list for some years, and was the judge constituting the Mental Health Court from February 2005 until May 2006, when she was appointed to the Court of Appeal. From 16 January 2011 until 16 March 2012, Justice Holmes was the Commissioner of the Commission of Inquiry into the Queensland Floods 2010-2011.

Justice Holmes AC was made a Companion in the General Division of the Order of Australia on Australia Day in 2020, for eminent service to the judiciary, notably to criminal, administrative, and mental health law, and to the community of Queensland. She was a founding member of the Queensland Women’s Legal Service in 1984.

Dr Helen Durham is a leading international lawyer, focusing on international humanitarian law (IHL or the laws of war). With a passion for the protections afforded to civilians during times of armed conflict (in particular women) Helen has had a long term career with the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement. In 2014 she was appointed as the Director of International Law and Policy for the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) headquarters in Geneva Switzerland and is the first woman to occupy this role in the institution’s 150 year history.

In 2017, Helen Durham was made an Officer in the General Division of the Order of Australia ‘for distinguished service to international relations in the area of humanitarian and criminal law, to the protection of women during times of armed conflict, and to legal education’.

Jane Macdonnell is a lawyer with extensive experience in public sector administration. She grew up in North Queensland and is a graduate of the James Cook University and of the Queensland University of Technology (QUT).

Macdonnell’s public sector career commenced as a graduate clerk with the Department of Defence in 1975 and thereafter she advanced to senior managerial positions in internal audit, corporate services, disability services and aged care programs in the then Departments of Social Security; Community Services; Community Services and Health. She was the first woman appointed to many of those positions.

Macdonnell was admitted to practise as a barrister in 1987 and was the recipient of the James Archibald Douglas prize for the outstanding reader of her Bar Practice Course. Having accepted an offer of employment with Henderson Trout, she was admitted as a solicitor in 1989. In 1990, she became the first head of the Queensland Office of State Revenue and served in that role for five years. She subsequently served as a General Manger of Victoria Legal Aid before returning to Queensland in 1998 as Director-General of the Department of Justice and Attorney-General.

In 2000, Macdonnell was named the Outstanding Alumni for Law by QUT. At the end of 2000, she returned to Victoria as a partner with Clayton Utz before joining the Victorian Bar in 2003 where she continued to practise public law. In 2010, Macdonnell was appointed the Principal Member of the Social Security Appeals Tribunal (SSAT) and served in that role until the SSAT amalgamated with the Administrative Appeals Tribunal on 1 July 2015.

Justice Julie Dick is a judge of the District Court of Queensland, having been appointed to the bench in 2000. She has also served as an acting Judge of the Supreme Court of Queensland. She served as president of the Queensland Children’s Court 2007 – 2011, having been appointed a judge of that court in 2001.

Judge Dick was an articled clerk between 1973 and 1975. She was admitted to the bar in December 1975 and appointed Senior Counsel in November 1997. She had an extensive practice in criminal law, appearing in nearly fifty murder trials and many other high profile criminal matters.

Judge Dick was a member of the Law Reform Commission (Criminal Law Subdivision), a member of the Committee of the Queensland Bar Association and a member of the committee overseeing the 1997 Review of the Criminal Code. She was the inaugural Parliamentary Criminal Justice Commissioner between 1998 and December 2000 when she was appointed a District Court Judge. She was the President of the Children’s Court of Queensland from 2007 to 2011, Acting Supreme Court Judge in 2011 and a member of the Higher Courts Benchbook Committee since 2000.

Go to ‘Details’ below to read an essay written by Helen Moye about Julie Dick for the Trailblazing Women and the Law Project.

Elizabeth Hart was the second woman to be admitted a solicitor in Queensland and went on to enjoy a career that spanned five decades. She was a partner for thirty-four years and then a senior partner for twenty-one at the major Brisbane firm, Flower and Hart.

Read more about Marie Tulip in our sister publication The Encyclopedia of Women and Leadership in Twentieth-Century Australia.

Read more about Marie-Louise Uhr in our sister publication The Encyclopedia of Women and Leadership in Twentieth-Century Australia.

Read more about Kay Elizabeth Bass Saunders in our sister publication The Encyclopedia of Women and Leadership in Twentieth-Century Australia.

Read more about Beth Schultz in our sister publication The Encyclopedia of Women and Leadership in Twentieth-Century Australia.

Read more about Penny Ann Russell in our sister publication The Encyclopedia of Women and Leadership in Twentieth-Century Australia.

Read more about Gladys Dorothy O’Shane in our sister publication The Encyclopedia of Women and Leadership in Twentieth-Century Australia.

Read more about Mary Josephine O’Kane in our sister publication The Encyclopedia of Women and Leadership in Twentieth-Century Australia.

Read more about Aileen Moreton-Robinson in our sister publication The Encyclopedia of Women and Leadership in Twentieth-Century Australia.

Read more about Isabel McCorkindale in our sister publication The Encyclopedia of Women and Leadership in Twentieth-Century Australia.

Read more about Hatton Elizabeth McKenzie in our sister publication The Encyclopedia of Women and Leadership in Twentieth-Century Australia.

Read more about Georgia Lee in our sister publication The Encyclopedia of Women and Leadership in Twentieth-Century Australia.

Read more about Aila Inkeri Keto in our sister publication The Encyclopedia of Women and Leadership in Twentieth-Century Australia.

Read more about Jackie Huggins in our sister publication The Encyclopedia of Women and Leadership in Twentieth-Century Australia.

Ernestine Hill travelled extensively around Australia photographing and writing about the varied landscapes and people she encountered. She is particularly well known for her photographs of Aboriginal people.

Read more about Ernestine Hill in our sister publication The Encyclopedia of Women and Leadership in Twentieth-Century Australia.