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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2003 Week 8 Hansard (19 August) . . Page.. 2732 ..

MR SMYTH (continuing):

striving for genuine democracy. Betty was honoured in the year 2003 International Women's Day Awards on 7 March for her activities and all her achievements in furthering the cause of women in Australia and around the world. On behalf of the opposition, I rise to extend my condolences to the family and friends of Betty Searle.

MS DUNDAS: I rise to add the condolences of the ACT Democrats on the passing of Betty. I only briefly knew Betty through her work with the Older Women's Network, but she was actively involved in many other organisations, including Friends of the ACT Library Service, the Older Australians Advisory Council and the ACT Women's Consultative Council.

When Betty came as part of the Older Women's Network to present to the status of women committee, she regaled us with the story of problems she was facing in her aged person's unit, a story that was met with a wry comment from the OWN president, Julia Biles. She said, "I'm sure that this issue will be pursued because, once Betty raises something within our organisation, we get onto it."That quote sums up the determination Betty had and the way that she made other people get involved in her causes and work to make things better.

I was speaking to some of the women who have worked with Betty, and they impressed on me her sharpness of intellect and the example that she set to other women. They told me how Betty did not complete secondary education, having to leave school at 15, but in her sixties she went to university and obtained a BA and a master's degree, as well as lecturing in women's studies in New South Wales. They told me how she got on very well with her classmates, many of whom were 40 years younger. These classmates respected her and liked working with her, and they told me that Betty fitted well into the university lifestyle.

Betty also had a wry sense of humour, which is incredibly important when you spend your lifetime struggling against patriarchal institutions. Betty's mother marched with suffragettes Emily Pankhurst and Jessie Street in London, and Betty kept up this family tradition of campaigning for women's rights and equal pay. She herself worked with Jessie Street.

Some have described Betty as a radical working-class woman, and I think that that is as fitting title as any. She was a tireless campaigner against oppression, and I would like to thank Betty, and the women like her, who started beating down the path that many of us still follow today.

MS TUCKER: On behalf of the Greens, I would also like to express my condolences to Betty Searle's family and friends and to express thanks and admiration for her active life in pursuit of women's liberation and rights and for a more equal and fair society generally. I am happy to be able to note that her contributions were publicly recognised earlier this year with an individual award in the ACT government's International Women's Day Awards.

I first came to know Betty in 1995, when she and other members of the Older Women's Network (Action) came to the social policy committee to argue the importance of recognising older people-women in particular-as whole people and not a health problem. They also argued for specific needs, among which the need for

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