Mary Genevieve Gaudron KC (born 5 January 1943) is an Australian lawyer and judge, who was the first female Justice of the High Court of Australia.

She would later speak about the intense racism towards Indigenous Australians which was part of everyday life in Moree and how it influenced her strong opposition to all forms of discrimination.

[1] In 1951, H. V. Evatt passed through Moree to campaign for the "no" case in the 1951 referendum, at which the Menzies Liberal government was attempting to alter the Constitution of Australia in order to ban the Australian Communist Party.

[3] In 1960 Gaudron was awarded a federal government scholarship to study for a Bachelor of Arts degree at the University of Sydney, which she graduated with in 1962.

[citation needed] Gaudron was admitted to the New South Wales Bar in October 1968 after having completed her articles of clerkship and commenced practice as a barrister.

When future High Court colleague Michael McHugh attempted to sell his room, the other members of his chambers would not let Gaudron buy it, although there were no other buyers.

[citation needed] Gaudron's first major breakthrough was in 1970 with O'Shaughnessy v Mirror Newspapers Ltd,[4] where as a 27-year-old junior counsel she successfully argued the matter single-handedly before the High Court after the plaintiff, Peter O'Shaughnessy, sacked his senior counsel, Clive Evatt QC, preferring her ability over the veteran.

According to O'Shaughnessy, 'she cut a valiant figure, this "slip of a girl", who stood unsupported before the five legal elders of the land.

They were obviously impressed by her courage, her sheer elegant dash, her shining intellect finding expression in felicitous language, her good manners, charm, poise.

[citation needed] The case, begun by the Australian Council of Trade Unions and supported by the Whitlam government, extended the reach of the original but limited equal pay decision of 1969.

Gaudron's argument was based on the principles of the 1951 Equal Remuneration Convention of the International Labour Organization (an organisation she would later work for).

It was rumoured that Cameron had advocated in Cabinet for her appointment, first by emphasising her outstanding academic record, then by noting her humble working-class background, to which Whitlam supposedly said, "Next you'll be telling us she was born in a bloody manger!

[7] On 19 September 1997 Gaudron was appointed the founding Patron of Australian Women Lawyers and continued in this role until 20 February 2009.

Justice Michael Kirby, who was a close friend of Gaudron, has stated many times that her absence left the court with a different character and turned it into "a more blokey place".

At the time of her appointment to the High Court in 1987, the New South Wales legal magazine Justinian published anonymous remarks stating "a melancholy catalogue of sins of omission and commission as well as the better claims of others" ought to have weighed against her appointment,[21] and that she held "an emotional disposition inappropriate in a holder of judicial office".

[2] Jack Waterford in The Canberra Times observed that her appointment would likely be controversial as she was "strongly identified with the Labor Party, and despite a formidable career, has not generally been regarded as in the front rank of the legal profession".