The Australian Women's Register

A member of the National Party, Naomi Wilson was elected to the Parliament of Queensland as Member for Mulgrave in 1995. During her term in parliament she served as Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Families, Youth and Community Care from 1996-98, and as Minister for four months, from February to June 1998. She was defeated at the 1998 election. Before entering the state parliament she served in local government as a councillor on the Mulgrave Shire Council from 1991-95.

A member of the Australian Labor Party, Lindy Nelson-Carr was elected to the Parliament of Queensland as Member for Mundingburra in 1998. During her parliamentary carer she has served as a Minister in a number of portfolios and also as Parliamentary Secretary to the Premier and other Ministers.

A member of the Australian Labor Party, Jan Jarrett was elected to the Parliament of Queensland as Member for Whitsunday in 2001. She currently holds the position of Parliamentary Secretary for Employment and Economic Development.

A member of the Australian Labor Party, Margaret Keech was elected to the Parliament of Queensland as the Member for Albert in 2001. She has held a number of ministerial portfolios, including Child Safety and Women, Tourism, Fair Trading and Wine Industry Development. She currently holds the position of Government Whip.

A member of the Australian Labor Party, Carolyn Male was elected to the Parliament of Queensland as the Member for Glasshouse in 2001. After the electoral redistribution of 2008 she stood successfully for the seat of Pine Rivers at the 2009 election. She currently holds the position of Parliamentary Secretary for Education.

Described as a ‘woman of great strength’, Kathleen Egan was a Dominican Sister and educationist with a commitment to improving educational opportunities for children with hearing disabilities.

In 1931, after teaching in Tamworth and Mayfield, both in New South Wales, she was appointed to the Institution for the Deaf and Dumb at Waratah, Newcastle, New South Wales. Believing that ‘the deaf child has tastes, dislikes, ambitions similar to those of her unhandicapped sister’, she introduced the State curriculum (using conventional textbooks where possible) and was, thus, responsible for considerable reforms of education for the deaf in New South Wales.

A member of the Australian Labor Party, Christine Scott was elected to the Parliament of Queensland as the Member for Charters Towers in 2001. She served for one term only suffering defeat at the 2004 election.

A member of the Australian Labor Party, Carryn Sullivan was elected to the Parliament of Queensland as Member for Pumicestone in 2001. She was re-elected in 2004, 2006 and 2009. Before her entry into the state parliament, she served as a councillor for the Shire of Caboolture from 1991-94.

Originally a member of the National Party in Queensland, now the Liberal National Party since the merger of the Liberal and National Parties in Queensland in September 2008, Rosemary Menkens was elected to the Parliament of Queensland as the Member for Burdekin in 2004. She was re-elected in 2006 and 2009.

Margaret Ann Montgomery Bailey was the longest serving headmistress of Ascham School. She experimented with new learning methods, introducing the ‘Dalton plan’, a philosophy of learning which emphasises self-responsibility and independence, into the senior school in 1922.

She was educated at the Newnham School for Girls, Toowoomba, and attended the University of Sydney, graduating with a Bachelor of Arts in 1900.

Sarah Hynes was the first woman to hold a government appointment in science in New South Wales. In 1934 she was appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE).

Beryl Ada Graham was a science teacher and author of several school textbooks.

She was educated at Bellevue Hill Public School, William Street Girls Junior High School (1931-1933) and Sydney Girls’ High (1934-35).

Graham graduated from Sydney Teachers’ College with Bachelor of Science in 1940 and was awarded the Eva Saunders Prize for Botany III. She received her Diploma in Education in 1941.

After graduating Graham taught at several public schools, including Cessnock High and Willoughby Girls’ Home Science High.

She married Ernest Graham in 1947 and had two children, born 1956 and 1957.

Dymphna Cusack was one of Australia’s most prolific and translated writers. Educated at St Ursula’s College, Armidale she won an Exhibition and Teaching Scholarship to the University of Sydney, graduating with a Bachelor of Arts and a Diploma of Education. While at the University of Sydney, she developed life-long friendships with fellow authors Florence James and Christina Stead, and lawyer Marie Byles. After graduating she worked as a teacher until her early retirement in 1944 due to ill-health.

Cusack’s literary career took off in 1935 when her first novel, Jungfrau, was published to critical acclaim. A further eleven novels, seven plays, three travel books, two children’s books and one non-fiction book followed. Two of her novels were collaborations: Pioneers on Parade (1939) with Miles Franklin; and Come In Spinner (1951) with Florence James.

Cusack’s books were translated into over 30 languages worldwide, making her one of Australia’s most translated authors. Her anti-bomb play, Pacific Paradise (1955), written in response to the United State’s atomic tests on Bikini Atoll, sealed her reputation across Asia, Eastern Europe and the Pacific.

During the 1950s and 1960s Cusack spent long periods overseas with her partner (later husband) Norman Randolph Freehill, a journalist and founding member of the Community Party of Australia. After returning to Australia in 1962 she became associated with Faith and Hans Bandler, leaders of the Aboriginal rights movements.

In 1963 Cusack was a foundation member of the Australian Society of Authors. In 1975 she was named Woman of the Year by the Union of Australian Women. In 1976 she refused the Order of the British Empire due to her republican ideals, but in 1981, soon before her death, she was appointed a Member of the Order of Australia (AM) for her contribution to Australian literature.

A member of the Liberal Party, Suzanne Napier was elected to the House of Assembly of the Parliament of Tasmania representing the electorate of Bass in 1992. She was re-elected in 1996, 1998, 2002 and 2006. During her parliamentary career she has held a range of ministerial portfolios, served as Deputy Premier from 1996-98 and as Leader of the Opposition from 1999-2001.

Fanny Cohen was headmistress of Fort Street Girls’ High School in Sydney from 1929 to 1952. She was appointed a Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) in 1962 for her services to education.

She was an inspirational teacher and leader with firm views about the importance of streaming gifted students and ensuring that talented girls were given the same opportunities as boys.

Gladys Hope Marks was a lifelong supporter of women’s rights. She was active in a range of feminist groups, including the National Council of Women of New South Wales. A gifted linguist, she taught French at the University of Sydney in the 1920s and 30s.

The New South Wales branch of the Australian Federation of University Women established the Gladys Marks memorial fund to assist mature women to complete courses at the university.

Marie Coutts Clark was a physicist and spectrochemist at the Australian Commonwealth Scientific and Research Organisation (CSIRO).

Clark was educated at North Sydney Girls’ High School and then the University of Sydney, graduating with a Bachelor of Science in 1932. She subsequently completed a Radio Engineering Diploma Course at Sydney.

Between 1932-1940 she taught at schools in Kyogle, Coffs Harbour, Yass and Griffith (all in New South Wales).

During the Second world War she worked at the (Amalgamated Wireless Australia) AWA Material Testing Laboratory (1940-45).

She then spent the rest of her professional life (1947-1970) employed as a Demonstrator in Physics at the University of Sydney, as a research officer in the Division of Radiophysics (CSIRO) and as a spectrochemist.

A member of the Australian Labor Party, Marion Reilly was elected to the Legislative Assembly for the Australian Capital Territory on the resignation of Mr Terry Connolly, representing the electorate of Molonglo. She remained in the Parliament until 1998, when she was defeated at the election held in that year.

A member of the ACT Greens, Deb Foskey was elected to the Legislative Assembly for the Australian Capital Territory representing the electorate of Molonglo in 2004. She retired from Parliament in 2008 after serving for one term only. She was a Greens candidate at the 2018 Victorian state election for the seat of East Gippsland and at the 2019 Federal election for the seat of Gippsland.

A member of the Australian Labor Party, Lynne Walker was elected to the Northern Territory Assembly as the Member for Nhulunbuy in 2008. She holds the position of Deputy Speaker and Chairman of Committees in the current Assembly.

Clara Weeks was born in England in 1852 and came to Victoria with her family at the age of six. Described as a ‘born teacher’, she began her career at sixteen, working in many rural and urban schools. She retired in 1913 as the Infant Mistress at Carlton Primary School, one of the highest positions then attainable for women, at one of Melbourne’s largest government schools.

Weeks’ professional experience radicalised her, particularly when it came to fighting for equal pay for women. Salaray and superannuation scheme for men assumed they needed to care for dependents whereas no such assumption was made for women. However, as Weeks observed, ‘hardly any women she knew … not one … did not have a dependant’.

Weeks was active in was active in many women’s organizations and worked alongside Vida Goldstein on the Victorian Women’s Suffrage Executive Committee.

Weeks died in 1937 having influenced hundreds of teachers, thousands of pupils and thousands more women with her advocacy for their rights.

Ailsa O’Connor was a radical artist who was a member of the Social Realist Group and the Contemporary Art Society in Melbourne. She joined the Communist party in 1944 and was a founding member of the Union of Australian Women in 1953. She participated in the feminist movement during the 1970s.

Florence Buchanan spent much of her life working in Anglican missions on Thursday and Moa Islands, north of Australia, despite a number of health problems. In 1887 she migrated to Australia, landing in Bundaberg, Queensland with her two brothers. She later assumed responsibility for the fundamentalist non-denominational South Seas Evangelical Mission, also know as the Queensland Kanaka Mission. During the 1890s she worked on Thursday Island and was ordained there as a deaconess in 1908. In the same year she went to Moa Island to conduct the Anglican mission and teach school. In 1911 she resigned from her position, due to ill-health, but continued to teach until her return to Brisbane in 1913.

Christina Smith worked with Aboriginal people, the Booandik (Buandig) in the Rivoli Bay area of South East Australia and in Mount Gambier. She recorded their customs, legends and social relationships for future generations. In 1854 the family moved to Mount Gambier where they established a night school, cared for Aboriginal orphans and taught adults of mixed race until the death of her husband, James Smith in 1860. In 1865, Christina eventually established a school and home for local Aboriginal children with funding she obtained from Lady Burdett-Coutts. The school however closed in 1868 due to loss of support and an epidemic and became a home for Aborigines.

Nat Davies began her teaching career in the primary sector in South Australia in 1926, but moved into girls’ technical schools in 1939, remaining there until her death in 1951. She was an active unionist, serving as treasurer of the Women’s Assistants’ Association from 1934-37. On the formation of the Women Teachers’ Guild in 1938, Davies served as its liaison officer from 1938-42 and its vice-president from 1945-49. During World War Two she was active in the Defence Society as its president and was the only female civil-defence officer in Adelaide.

Patricia (Pattie) Leighton was a Western Australian nominee for the ABC Rural Woman of the Year Award in 1994. She and her husband established a property in the Cape Rich area, north-east of Albany, W.A., in 1966.

Deborah Thiele was the inaugural national winner of the Australian Rural Woman of the Year Award in 1994. A graduate of the prestigious Roseworthy Agricultural College (now a campus of the University of Adelaide) not long after it opened its doors to women, she was the first woman to be appointed as an Agricultural Science Senior in the South Australian Education Department. A teacher with a rapidly advancing career in the Department of Education, she returned to farming when she married her husband, Anton. She is joint owner of their farm at Loxton in eastern South Australia. Since 2000 she has worked as an Agricultural Consultant and Lecturer, specialising in Farm Business Management.

In 2007, she stood for the federal electorate of Barker as the National Party Candidate. Prior to that, she stood for election to the South Australian Legislative Council. She stood again at the S.A election in 2010.

Thiele had an impressive record of community engagement at the time she won the award, and continues to maintain that record.