The Australian Women's Register

A member of the Australian Greens party, Christine Milne was elected to the Senate of the Parliament of Australia as a Senator for Tasmania in 2004. Before her election to the Federal Parliament she served as member for Lyons in the Tasmanian State Parliament in the House of Assembly from 1989 until her defeat in 1998. She was re-elected at the 2010 federal election.

Emma Crawford probably migrated to Brisbane in 1896 and almost immediately involved herself in the work of the Society of the Sacred Advent, a religious order committed to the care of Brisbane’s underprivileged women and children. She presided over the Society’s establishment of Anglican schools (all public teaching in Queensland was legislated secular) and made them financially viable. After developing an industrial school for wayward girls in Brisbane, the community took charge of a school in Stanthorpe in 1909 which was later moved to Warwick and named St Catharine’s. She also helped to establish boarding schools for girls in Townsville, Herberton, Charters Towers, Yeppoon and Brisbane.

By the time Mother Emma died, in 1939, the Society was active in three of Queensland’s five Dioceses – this despite never having more that thirty professed sisters working during the course of her lifetime.

Jo Vallentine was elected to the Senate of the Parliament of Australia as a Senator for Western Australia representing the Nuclear Disarmament Party in 1985. On her resignation form the Nuclear Disarmament Party, she remained in the Parliament as an Independent, until she joined the Western Australian Greens in July 1990. She resigned from Parliament in 1992.

A member of the Australian Democrats, Jean Jenkins was elected to the Senate of the Parliament of Australia in 1987 as a representative for Western Australia. She served as Deputy Leader of the Australian Democrats from April 1990 until her defeat at the July 1990 general election.

A member of the Australian Labor Party, Kay Denman filled a casual vacancy in the Senate of the Parliament of Australia as a Senator for Tasmania in 1993. She was elected in 1998 and served until her retirement from parliament in June 2005.

A member of the Australian Labor Party, Sharon Bird was elected to the House of Representatives of the Australian Parliament as the Member for Cunningham, New South Wales, in 2004. She was re-elected in 2007 and in 2010.

Initially a member of the Liberal and Country League of Western Australia, Agnes Robertson was elected to the Senate of the Australian Parliament in December 1949. On being dropped from the Liberal Party’s Senate ticket in 1955 because of her age, she joined the Country and Democratic League, was listed first on its ticket and won, becoming the first Country Party’s female senator. She retired from parliament in 1962.

A member of the Australian Labor Party, Silvia Smith was elected to the House of Representatives of the Australian Parliament as the Member for Bass, Tasmania in 1993. She remained in the federal parliament for one term, suffering defeat at the 1996 election, when the Keating Labor Government was swept from power.
From 1997-2003 she served as a Legislative Councillor in the Tasmanian State Parliament representing the electorate of Windermere as an Independent Labor member.

A member of the Liberal Party of Australia, Andrea West was elected to the House of Representatives of the Parliament of Australia as Member for Bowman, Queensland in 1996. She remained in Parliament for one term only as she was defeated at the 1998 election.

Originally a member of the Australian Democrats Party, Cheryl Kernot was elected to the Senate of the Parliament of Australia as a representative for Queensland in 1990. She was elected leader of the Party in 1993, remaining in that position until her defection to the Australian Labor Party in 1997. She was elected to the seat of Dickson Queensland in the House of Representatives in 1998, but was defeated at the 2001 election.

Margaret McLean, a founding member of the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union of Victoria in 1887, became Melbourne’s foremost advocate of votes for women.

An active and well-known feminist, Margaret McLean was the first person to sign the Women’s Suffrage petition. She signed the petition as Mrs. William McLean, possibly to indicate the support of her husband, who was an influential Melbourne businessman.

Despite receiving little recognition for her feminist activities, Margaret McLean was a strong political force for women’s rights in Melbourne throughout her life.

A member of a stong Australian Labor Party family, Elaine Darling was the first woman from Queensland to be elected to the House of Representatives in the Australian Parliament in 1980. She was the fifth woman elected to the House of Representatives, and the second female Labor member of that House. She represented the electorate of Lilley until her retirement in 1993.

When Elaine Darling first arrived in parliament in 1980, as one of three women elected, the custom was still to refer to parliamentarians as a collective as ‘The Honourable Gentlemen of the House.’ When the Speaker of the House, Billy Sneddon, called the House to order, he asked the Honourable Gentlemen to sit. Elaine Darling remained standing and, when asked to explain herself, said ‘Mr. Speaker, I am no gentleman’. That custom changed, and slowly, progressively, others did too.

A member of the Liberal Party of Australia, Kathy Martin was elected to the Australian Senate as a Representative for Queensland at the 1974 federal election. She remained in the Senate until 1984, when she resigned to contest a seat in the House of Representatives under her married name, Kathy Sullivan. She served as the Member for Moncrieff, Queensland, from December 1984, until her retirement in 2001. She held the position of Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Foreign Affairs from 1997-2000. She was the first woman to serve in both Houses of the Federal Parliament and holds the distinction of being the longest serving woman in that institution.

A member of the Australian Labor Party, Mary Crawford was elected to the House of Representatives of the Australian Parliament as the Member for Forde, Queensland, at the 1987 federal election. In 1994 she was appointed Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Housing and Regional Development in the Keating Government and held that position until her defeat at the 1996 election.

Originally a member of the Australian Democrats Party, Meg Lees served as a Senator for South Australia in the Senate of the Parliament of Australia from 1990 until 2002, when she left the party to sit as an Independent. She was elected leader of the Party in 1997 and played an influential role in the introduction of a Goods and Service Tax in Australia in 2000. Lees was defeated for the Party leadership by Senator Stott Despoja in 2001. In 2003 Lees formed the Australian Progressive Alliance but lost her seat at the 2004 federal election.

Ellen Arnold was the first missionary to serve with an Australian Baptist missionary society.

Jane Barker established St Catherine’s Anglican boarding school for girls at Waverley, New South Wales.

A member of the Australian Labor Party, Chloë Fox was elected to the House of Assembly of the Parliament of South Australia to represent the electorate of Bright at the election, which was held on 18 March 2006. She made her first attempt to enter Parliament was in 2004 when she stood in the seat of Boothby at the federal election. She was re-elected in 2010.

Annie Carl operated the ‘Travellers Rest’ lodging house in Silverton, New South Wales. She was one of the first teachers in the town.

A member of the Australian Democrats, Sandra Kanck was elected to the Legislative Council of the Parliament of South Australia at the election, which was held on 11 December 1993. She remained in the Parliament until January 2009.

As a small child, Kitty Lund entertained the Broken Hill community with her acting and dancing performances on the local stage. In later life, as Kit Harris, she published two popular books on handcrafts.

Phyllis Gibb was the first teacher at the School of the Air in Broken Hill, New South Wales.

A devout Catholic, Annie Golding was president of the Women’s Progressive Association in Sydney from 1904. She lobbied for equal pay for women, and equal opportunity in the work force.

Jane Sutherland arrived in Sydney with her family in 1864. She studied at the National Gallery School of Design, and held a number of exhibitions from 1878. Sutherland was a leader in the movement away from the nineteenth-century tradition of studio art, and toward the plein-air style, sketching directly from nature.

Florence Johnson, a teacher and active unionist, stood as an Independent Labor candidate in the Legislative Assembly seat of St Kilda at the Victorian state election, which was held on 9 April 1927.

Lucy Woodcock was a founding member of the New South Wales Teachers’ Federation in 1919, and became president of the Australian Teachers’ Federation in 1932. A trade unionist and a feminist, she also gained a favourable reputation as a humanitarian worker during the depression years. Woodcock helped to found the Australia-China Society and hosted a meeting in April 1956 that led to the establishment of the Aboriginal-Australian Fellowship.

After winning a Bulletin prize in 1913 for a sonnet about Canberra, Nina Murdoch published a book of verse, Songs of the Open Air. She was one of the first women general reporters at the Sydney Sun, and from 1922 was working in Melbourne at the Sun News-Pictorial using the pen-name ‘Manin’. She was the first woman permitted to cover Senate debates. In 1930, Murdoch published Seventh Heaven, a Joyous Discovery of Europe, based on her own travels. Another book, She Travelled Alone in Spain, followed five years later. Her last book, Portrait in Youth of Sir John Longstaff, was published in 1948.