The Australian Women's Register

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.

Named in memory and celebration of the life and work of Dr Clare Burton, The Clare Burton Award is directed to a particular work area within the University that has made the most outstanding contribution towards progress in equal opportunity, or has achieved significant success in the promotion of an environment for staff where human diversity is valued.

The National Pay Equity Coalition took up the struggle for equal pay for women, intervening in national wage cases in the 1980s and 1990s.

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.

Fay Lo Po’ retired in 2003 after a distinguished public career in NSW politics. A long time member of the Australian Labor Party, she served in local government (on the Penrith City Council) before winning the seat of Penrith in the New South Wales Legislative Assembly in 1991. Lo Po was re-elected in 1995 and 1999. While an MP, she held a number of portfolios, including Minister for Women, Community Services, Fair Trading and Consumer Affairs. She was Shadow Minister for Housing in 1994-95 while the ALP were in opposition.

Fay Lo Po’ was also heavily involved in local politics in the 1970s and 80s, culminating in a term as Mayor of the Penrith City Council in 1990-1991. She was Alderman of Prospect Electricity (1980-1987, 1991-1992) serving as Chair. From 1986-1987. She was Chair of the NSW Women’s Advisory Council, a Member of the Metropolitan Waste Disposal Authority, Chair of the NSW Board of Adult Education and Patron of various groups. She was appointed an AM in 1984.

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

Pearson was the first women in Britain to be decorated (received the George Cross) for saving a pilot from a burning plane.

Trisha Burkitt Dixon is a writer and a photographer with a passion for landscape, literature, art and history. She has written, edited, photographed and co-authored a number of books, has edited journals and contributed as a columnist and writer/photographer to various publications and lectured widely within Australia and abroad. Trisha is on the Board of the Powerhouse Museum in Sydney, on the National Management Committee of the Australian Garden History Society and a company member of Winifred West Schools Limited.

Linking her passions of literature and landscape, Trisha’s recent book Under the Spell of the Ages was published by the National Library of Australia. Trisha is currently working on a book to be published by Murdoch Books. She has spent 20 years documenting the life of Australia’s leading landscape designer, Edna Walling and spent some years working on a private commission to document one of Australia’s most interesting pastoral properties where our only Nobel Prize laureate for Literature, Patrick White wrote his first novel, Banjo Paterson wrote his last poem for and poet Barcroft Boake wrote a number of poems about. Research for this book led her to Greece and the island of Hydra where she now takes literary and photographic workshops.

Trisha has also worked as a pilot and as a presenter on ABC Television and is a landscape consultant and heritage adviser. She lives in an early colonial house on her historic grazing property at the foothills of the Snowy Mountains.

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.

In 1919, Susan Benny was elected a member of South Australia’s Brighton Council, thus becoming Australia’s first woman politician. She held her seat for two elections and left local government after failing to become mayor in 1922.

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.

The Women’s Action Committee grew out of initial meetings held by Dr Zelda D’Aprano, Alva Geikie and Thelma Solomon in 1970. WAC’s campaigns highlighted the inequality of women’s pay scales by paying only 75% of the fares when riding on public transport. WAC incorporated itself into the growing Melbourne women’s liberation movement in mid 1972.

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.

Lilian Turner was the older sister of Ethel, with whom she wrote stories and edited magazines while at Sydney Girls’ High School. She won the Cassell and Co. (London publishers) literary competition for her novel The Lights of Sydney.

Carol Anne Martin was the first Indigenous women to be elected to an Australian Parliament. In 2001, she was elected MLA (ALP) for the Western Australian seat of Kimberley.

Originally named the Nursing Mothers’ Association the extra A for Australia was added in 1969 to reflect the national nature as the Association grew.

Established at a time when formula feeding was seen as modern and fashionable and viewed as being as good as, if not better than breastfeeding.

Founded in Melbourne Victoria in 1964 as the Nursing Mothers Association. In 2001 the Association members voted for the name change to Australian Breastfeeding Association.

Edith Onians was a full-time volunteer (organiser and honorary secretary) from 1897 until her death in 1955 of the Melbourne Newsboys Society. She was the first woman Special Magistrate appointed to Children’s Court Melbourne in 1927, and was appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire (Civil) on 2 January 1933 for services to child welfare in Victoria.

Margaret Reid is the first woman to have been elected President of the Senate. She held this position for six years, from 20 August 1996 to 18 August 2002. In 2004 she was appointed Officer of the Order of Australia for her service to the Australian Parliament and the community.

The Australian Servicewomen’s Memorial was dedicated by the Minister for Veterans’ Affairs, the Hon. Bruce Scott MP, on 27 March 1999. The Memorial, designed by Sydney sculptor, Anne Ferguson, commemorates all women who served, suffered and died in the defence of Australia.

During the 1970’s Sinn was employed as a designer with Prue Acton. Upon her return from London she started her own business called Hedgehog.

Mary Delahunty won the seat of Northcote (Legislative Assembly) for the Australian Labor Party, in a by-election in August 1998. She held the ministerial portfolios of Education, the Centenary of Federation, Planning, Arts and Women’s Affairs. Before entering politics, she was Managing Director of her own media consultancy company, also a former ABC journalist and long time member of the Journalist’s Union. She retired from politics at the state election in November 2006.

EMILY’s List Australia is a national organisation aimed at getting more progressive Labor women elected to Parliament. Based on a model established in the United States in 1986 by Democrat women, EMILY’s List Australia identifies talented Labor women seeking election and supports them with funding, campaign advice, skills and information.

The founders of EMILY’s list recognised that money spent early in the campaign is often the most important support a candidate can have when heading into an election. Consequently, the ‘Emily’ in EMILY’s List, is not a name, but an acronym standing for ‘Early Money is Like Yeast’ – it makes the dough rise.

EMILY’s List provides financial, training and mentoring support to endorsed candidates in State and Federal election campaigns. It currently has over 2000 members, and Action Groups in each State and Territory.

Source: http://www.emilyslist.org.au/

A member of the Australian Labor Party, Sherryl Garbutt was elected to the seat of Greensborough in 1989 at a by-election following the death of Pauline Toner; the seat of Greensborough was abolished in the 1990 redistribution. She was the Member (ALP) of Parliament for the Bundoora electorate from 1992-2006 and held the portfolios of Environment and Conservation and Women’s Affairs from 1999-2002 and Community Services from 2002-06. She did not contest the 2006 election.