Women and government in Australia
[5] Indigenous Australian women could vote in some jurisdictions and circumstances from the outset, but did not achieve unqualified suffrage in all states and territories until 1962.
The first female to lead a state or territory government was Rosemary Follett serving in 1989 and again between 1991 and 1995 as chief minister of the ACT.
In the Northern Territory, Clare Martin became the first female chief minister in 2001 winning from opposition and was reelected in 2005 with an increased majority.
Despite being the earliest state to grant voting rights and allow women to stand in parliament since 1895, South Australia has never had a female premier.
Woman were allowed to vote and be stand for election in 1902 but many people thought that this was a bad idea so until 41 years later there were no women in parliament.
[11] Following the successful establishment of voter rights for males, women's suffrage groups began to organise in Australia from the 1880s.
Key figures in the Australian suffrage movement included South Australians Mary Lee and Catherine Helen Spence, Western Australian Edith Cowan, New South Welsh Maybanke Anderson, Louisa Lawson, Dora Montefiore and Rose Scott, Tasmanians Alicia O'Shea Petersen and Jessie Rooke, Queenslander Emma Miller, and Victorians Annette Bear-Crawford, Henrietta Dugdale, Vida Goldstein, Alice Henry and Annie Lowe.
New South Wales, Tasmania, Queensland and Victoria followed the lead of the other states in allowing women to vote, and later to stand for election.
By the time the territories achieved self-government in 1978 and 1989 respectively, they did not need to enact specific legislation to enable the women's vote.
The right to vote in local government elections was granted later in most jurisdictions than it was at the state and federal levels.
This was the case in every state except for Tasmania, where an independent, Margaret McIntyre, was the first woman elected to parliament.
Since 2015, 12 Indigenous women have been elected to state, territory or commonwealth parliaments, with 5 of whom having been ministers in a government starting with Marion Scrymgour in 2007.
[12] They were Mary Moore-Bentley and Nellie Martel from New South Wales, and Vida Goldstein from Victoria, all of whom stood for the Senate, and Selina Anderson who contested the Sydney House of Representatives seat of Dalley.
With Australian Labor Party endorsement, Tangney was elected to the Senate representing Western Australia, an office she held until 1968.
With the backing of the United Australia Party, Lyons was elected to the House of Representatives as the member for the Division of Darwin, which was located in Tasmania.
[17] Bishop was replaced by Senator Marise Payne, who had served as Australia's first female Defence Minister.
The National Party also had its first female Deputy Leader over the period in Fiona Nash, who held the position from 2008 to 2017.
[18] In December 2014, Liberal MP Bronwyn Bishop eclipsed Kathy Sullivan's earlier record of 27 years to become the longest-serving female Member of the Australian Federal Parliament.
The very great majority of women were effectively blocked from non-secretarial positions in the Commonwealth Public Service.
In November 1966, Australia became the last democratic country to lift the legislated marriage bar which had prevented married women from holding permanent positions in the public service.
In 1989 Rosemary Follett became the first female head of government in Australia, as Chief Minister of the Australian Capital Territory.
She was followed by the appointment of Joan Kirner as Premier of Victoria, in which position she served from 1990 to 1992, when her party was swept from office by Jeff Kennett's conservatives.
In 2009, she became the first woman in Australia to be elected Premier, though she subsequently suffered a landslide loss to Campbell Newman's LNP in 2012.
On 4 December 2009, Kristina Keneally replaced Nathan Rees to become the first female Premier of New South Wales.
In 2011 Lara Giddings became the first female Premier of Tasmania, serving until 2014 when she likewise suffered a crushing loss to conservative leader Will Hodgman.
Marion Scrymgour is to date the highest ranked Indigenous woman in a government in Australia when she was Deputy Chief Minister of the Northern Territory from 2007 until 2009.
[34] She was still the only female judge in South Australia when she retired 18 years later in 1983 although Justices Elizabeth Evatt and Mary Gaudron had been appointed to federal courts by the Whitlam Government.
Queensland's first female councillor was Dr Ellen Kent-Hughes, elected to Kingaroy Shire Council in 1923.
[36] Australia's first female lord mayor, Joy Cummings, was elected to Newcastle City Council in 1974.
In the 1980s women began to hold the position of Lord Mayor in the capital cities for the first time, including: In 2010, Australia had female leaders occupying every major political office, with Clover Moore as Lord Mayor, Kristina Keneally as Premier of New South Wales, Marie Bashir as Governor of New South Wales, Julia Gillard as prime minister, Quentin Bryce as Governor-General of Australia, and Elizabeth II as Queen of Australia.
