Joyce Steele

Joyce Steele (29 May 1909 – 24 September 1991) was an Australian politician and one of the first two women elected to the Parliament of South Australia, the other being Jessie Cooper.

[1] Ironically, while South Australian women had been given the right to vote and stand for election—a right they had gained at the 1896 election—South Australia had been the last state to elect a female representative.

She was pre-selected for the Liberal and Country League's (LCL) safest metropolitan seat, Burnside, in 1959 and was comfortably elected.

[2] After the government passed electoral reform legislation in 1968, Burnside was mostly replaced by the equally safe seat of Bragg.

[citation needed] In the 1981 New Years Honours Steele was made an Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE).