Page 792 - Week 02 - Thursday, 10 March 2011
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of labour legislation in the US that became the focus of many subsequent International Women’s Day events.
In Australia, we have a proud and interesting history of a strong and militant women’s movement and we have seen what a difference movements of this longevity and magnitude can made to the fabric of our community. South Australia was the first colony to grant women the right to vote and stand, in 1895. Western Australia followed, giving women the vote in 1899, but it was another 21 years before WA women were given the right to stand. It was in 1903, just two years after federation, that the commonwealth government passed legislation allowing most women to vote and stand in the 1903 federal election. New South Wales, Victoria, Queensland and Tasmania all passed their own legislation after federation, to catch up with South Australia and WA and give women the right to vote. Whilst most women could vote, Indigenous women could not.
Over the next couple of decades, women stood for parliament, but none were successful until 1921, when Edith Cowan was elected just one year after her state gave her the right to run. The Age editorial at the time cautioned against more women entering politics. It said:
Were political office to become … the latest craze of fashion, there would be many dreary and neglected homes throughout the country sacrificed on the altar of political ambition.
Edith was the first woman to enter any Australian parliament when she was elected to the Western Australian Assembly. She introduced the Women’s Legal Status Act, which enabled women to practise law. In 1923, Victoria, the last of the states to do this, gave women the right to stand.
In 1928, the first International Women’s Day rally was held in the Sydney Domain. In 1943, the first women were elected to federal parliament and in 1962 Indigenous women were finally granted the right to vote. In 1966, the ban on married women in the public service, as laid out in the commonwealth Public Service Act, was lifted; up until this time, women had to resign from the public service as soon as they were married. I did find it interesting that it did not take too long before there was paid maternity leave; in fact, it was only seven years from the lifting of the marriage bar to the granting of paid maternity leave for commonwealth public servants.
In 1969, the Australian Council of Trade Unions mounted a test case to get rid of the difference between pay rates. The court ruled that women should begin to get at least 85 per cent of the male wage. In 1972, it was decided that women would be awarded equal pay—that is, 100 per cent of the male wage. We know there is more work to be done and I think other speakers have spoken on that.
In 1973, when Gough Whitlam became Prime Minister, he created the position of women’s adviser to the Prime Minister, the first position of this type in the world. Elizabeth Reid was the first to hold this position and was supported by the office of women’s affairs, which was installed by Whitlam.
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