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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1997 Week 1 Hansard (19 February) . . Page.. 82 ..

MS REILLY (continuing):

There is another story about age in relation to Edna. When she was working for one of the Sydney municipal councils she put her age down because it was going to be easier to get a job. Of course, when she came close to retirement age it was rather difficult then to try to prove how old she was so that she could retire at 65. There was a quite amusing story about how she organised to get access to her pension. Age has obviously been quite a factor in her life. There is one further thing about her age. She was born in 1904, which saw the setting up of the Arbitration Commission in Australia. Australia has been one of the world leaders in industrial relations and working conditions for all working people. It was quite a portent that she was born in the year that we started important matters in regard to industrial relations in Australia and she had a strong commitment to that all of her life.

I think anyone who knew Edna knew what a wonderful, committed person she was. Her energy was amazing. When she appeared before the Industrial Relations Commission in 1973 she was already well past retirement age. She was still working, still advising governments, in the 1990s. She was looking at enterprise bargaining and looking at what the impact would be on working people, particularly women. She was talking to Laurie Brereton when he was working through the setting up of enterprise bargaining. Here was a woman in her eighties, still vigorously working, outlasting a number of much younger people.

I think we will see the benefits of Edna Ryan's work for many years to come. I think we all can be very glad that she was in Australia working so hard for all of us who were working, and particularly women in Australia. I offer my condolences to her family and to the whole of the community.

MS TUCKER: I would like to speak briefly to this condolence motion on Edna Ryan, a woman who fought doggedly for women's rights and the union movement over the course of her long life. Edna Ryan has been described as Australia's oldest feminist, and she certainly achieved a great deal during her life through her involvement in the Women's Electoral Lobby, the Australian Labor Party, local councils, the union movement - and the list goes on.

It seems almost inconceivable that only 20 years ago women were not even entitled to the same wage as men. Edna Ryan's campaigning helped convince the Arbitration Commission in 1974 to extend to women for the first time the same minimum wage as men. As recently as last year she was lobbying the present Government to ensure that its changes to industrial laws included safeguards protecting women in the work force.

People like Edna Ryan are an inspiration to me, as a politician who also happens to be a woman. While issues of equal opportunity are still firmly on the agenda in 1997, if it were not for women like Edna Ryan, women of all political persuasions who have had the common objective of bettering women's rights, I would perhaps not even have the opportunity to be standing here today. By being the first woman in a number of forums, Edna Ryan paved the way for other women to break into what were previously male dominated institutions, and she was active right up to the end of her life in this area. She will be greatly missed.

Question resolved in the affirmative, members standing in their places.

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