The Australian Women's Register

A member of the Australian Labor Party, Merri Rose was elected to the Parliament of Queensland as Member for Currumbin in 1992. During her period in Parliament she served as Minister for Tourism and Racing from 1999-2004, for Fair trading from 2001-2004 and for Emergency Services from 1998-1999. She was defeated at the 2004 election.

A member of the Liberal Party, Lynette Warwick was elected to the Parliament of Queensland as Member for Barron River in 1995. She was defeated at the 1998 election and was an unsuccessful candidate again at the 2001 election.

Linda Lavarch was the first female lawyer elected to the Parliament of Queensland, Australia. In July 2005 she was appointed Minister for Justice and Attorney-General – the first woman to be Attorney-General in Queensland. As Attorney-General she oversaw the introduction of permanent drug courts in Queensland and the creation of the offence of identity theft. Retiring from state politics in 2009, Lavarch became involved in medical research and the not-for-profit sector, chairing the Not-For-Profit Sector Reform Council. Lavarch stood as the Labor candidate for the Queensland seat of Dickson in the 2016 Australian federal election.

Linda Lavarch was interviewed by Kim Rubenstein for the Trailblazing Women and the Law Oral History Project. For details of the interview see the National Library of Australia CATALOGUE RECORD.

A member of the Australian Labor Party, Nita Cunningham was elected to the Parliament of Queensland in 1998 as Member for Bundaberg and served until her retirement from parliament in 2006. During her parliamentary career she served as Minister for Local Government and Planning from November 2000 until February 2004. Before her entry into state parliament she served as a local government councillor and Deputy Mayor from 1988 until 1991 and as Mayor from 1991 until 1998.

A member of the Liberal Party of Australia, Sue Boyce was chosen by the Queensland Parliament to represent the state on 19 April 2007 on the resignation of Senator Santoro in the Senate of the Australian Parliament. She was elected in 2007 for a six year term.

On the September 5, 2008, Quentin Bryce assumed the office of Governor-General of Australia, the twenty-fifth person to hold the office, but the first and only woman.

The appointment was the latest in a long line of ‘firsts’ for Bryce. A graduate from the University of Queensland with degrees in arts and law, she was one of the first Queensland women to be admitted to the Queensland Bar. In 1968 she became the first woman to be a faculty member of the Law school where she had studied. In 1984 she was appointed inaugural Director of the Queensland Women’s Information Service, Office of the Status of Women, Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet. In the period 1993 to 1996, she was founding Chair and Chief Executive Officer of the National Childcare Accreditation Council. In 2003, she became the second woman to be appointed to the position of Governor of Queensland. She has also served as Queensland director of the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission. In 1989 she became the Sex Discrimination Commissioner on the commission. And she was one of the first women to serve on the National Women’s Advisory Council, established by the commonwealth government in 1978.

From country stock, raised in a series of small towns scattered around central-west Queensland, Bryce was home schooled by her mother before being packed off to board at Brisbane’s Moreton Bay College, attending the University of Queensland subsequently. At university she reacquainted herself with an architecture student, Michael Bryce, whom she had first met as a nine-year- old. They started dating and married in 1964. They now have two daughters, three sons and five grandchildren.

Of his decision to recommend Quentin Bryce to the role of Governor-General, Prime Minister Kevin Rudd in 2008 said:

It’s obvious that we needed to have a governor-general for Australia who captures the spirit of modern Australia, and the spirit of modern Australia is many things. Giving proper voice to people from the bush and the regions, giving proper voice to the rights of women, giving proper voice to the proper place of women in modern Australia and proper place to someone committed to the lives of, improving the lives for Indigenous Australians. These are all considerations in shaping my recommendation to her Majesty the Queen.

Of her own appointment as Governor-General, Quentin Bryce has remarked:

I grew up in a little bush town in Queensland of 200 people and what this day says to Australian women and to Australian girls is that you can do anything, you can be anything, and it makes my heart sing to see women in so many diverse roles across our country and Australia.

A member of the Australian Labor Party, Vi Jordan was elected to the Parliament of Queensland as Member for Ipswich West at the state election, which was held in 1966. She was the second woman to be elected to the Queensland Parliament. She was re-elected in 1969 and 1972, but was ultimately defeated in 1974. Before entering the state Parliament, she served as a Councillor for the Ipswich City Council.

A member of the National Party, Vicky Kippin was the first woman from her party to be elected to a parliament in Australia in 1974. She represented the electorate of Mourilyan in the Queensland Parliament. She was re-elected in 1977, but defeated at the 1980 election. She was a candidate again in 1983, but was unsuccessful in regaining the seat. After her parliamentary career she served as a councillor for the Johnstone Shire Council from 1982-85.

Beryce Nelson represented both the Liberal and National Parties in the Queensland Parliament. She was elected as the Member for Aspley, representing the Liberal Party of Australia, in 1980. In August 1983, during her first term in parliament, she was appointed Government Deputy Whip, the first woman to gain the position, but was unfortunately defeated at the election, which was held in the same year. After her resignation from the Liberal Party in 1984 and on joining the National Party in 1985, she won the seat of Apsley in 1986 for the National Party and was appointed Minister for Family Services in 1989. She was the third woman to hold a ministerial portfolio in Queensland.

A member of the Australian Labor Party, Claire Moore was elected as a Senator for Queensland in the Senate of the Australian Parliament in 2001. She was re-elected in 2007.

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.

The Society of the Sacred Advent is an Anglican religious order founded in 1892 by Caroline Amy Balguy (later to be known as Mother Caroline). She migrated from England to do the job at the request of the Reverend Stone-Wigg, Vicar of St John’s Pro-Cathedral in Brisbane, Queensland, who saw the need for an Anglican religious order for women in Brisbane. In its early days, the Society of the Sacred Advent focused on ministering to the needs of women and children. It established several schools and children’s homes throughout Queensland in order to advance its mission

The Society still has two girls’ schools located in Brisbane; St Margaret’s and St Aidan’s. Although the Sisters are no longer involved in the day-to-day running of the schools, two Sisters remain active on each of the School Councils.

A member of the National Party, Flo Bjelke-Petersen was elected Senator for Queensland in the Senate of the Australian Parliament in 1980. She held the position of Deputy Leader of the Opposition in the Senate from 1985 until 1990 and retired from parliament in 1993. She was married to Sir Joh Bjelke-Petersen, who served as Premier of Queensland from 1968-87.

A member of the Liberal Party of Australia, Susan Knowles was elected to the Senate of the Parliament of Australia as a Senator for Western Australia in 1984. In 1987 she was elected Deputy Opposition Whip in the Senate, a position she retained until 1993. She remained in Parliament until 30 June 2005, having served for more than twenty years.

A member of the Australian Labor Party, Justine Elliot was elected to the House of Representatives of the Australian Parliament as the Member for Richmond, New South Wales, in 2004. She was re-elected in 2007 and appointed Minister for the Ageing in the Rudd Labor Government. She was re-elected again in 2010 and currently holds the position of Parliamentary Secretary for Foreign Affairs and Trade.

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

A member of the Australian Labor Party, Belinda Neal was elected to the House of Representatives of the Australian Parliament as the Member for Robertson, New South Wales, in 2007. She was appointed to the Australian Senate in 1994, serving until 1998, when she resigned to contest the seat of Robertson in the House of Representatives. She was unsuccessful on that occasion. Before entering the federal political arena, she served in local government as Councillor for the Gosford City Council from 1991-95. She was not a candidate at the 2010 election as she lost pre-selection for the seat.

A member of the Australian Labor Party, Kerry Rea was elected to the House of Representatives of the Australian Parliament as the Member for Bonner, Queensland, in 2007. Before entering the federal parliament, she served in Local Government on the Brisbane City Council from 1991-94 and 1997-2007.

A member of the Liberal Party of Australia, Kay Elson was elected to the House of Representatives of the Australian Parliament in the seat of Forde, Queensland in 1996. She was re-elected in 1998, 2001 and 2004, but retired before the November 2007 election.

A member of the Liberal Party of Australia, Teresa Gambaro was elected to the House of Representatives of the Australian Parliament in the seat of Petrie, Queensland in 1996. She was re-elected in 1998, 2001 and 2004, but was defeated at the election which was held in November 2007. Her appointments included Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Defence in July 2004; Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Foreign Affairs and trade in 2006 and in 2007 Assistant Minister for Immigration and Citizenship. She returned to the Australian Parliament at the 2010 federal election representing the electorate of Brisbane, Queensland.

Pauline Hanson was elected to the House of Representatives of the Australian Parliament as the Member for Oxley in 1996. Originally a Liberal Party candidate for the seat, the Party disendorsed her in February 1996, less than a month before the election. She contested the seat as an Independent and was successful. She remained in Parliament for one term only, suffering defeat at the 1998 election. Before entering the Federal Parliament, she served for one year as a Local Government Councillor for Ipswich City Council. She continues to hold political ambitions, and has stood unsuccessfully as a candidate for the Australian Senate in 2004 and was a candidate again at the Queensland state election, which was held in March 2009.

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.

A member of the Australian Labor Party, Kirsten Livermore was elected to the House of Representatives of the Australian Parliament as the Member for Capricornia, Queensland in 1998. She was re-elected in 2001, 2004, 2007 and 2010.

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.

Ann Bressington was elected to the Legislative Council of the Parliament of South Australia as an Independent at the election which was held on 18 March 2006.