Editors --- "Women in Parliament: Some Milestones" [2003] ALRCRefJl 22; (2003) 83 Australian Law Reform Commission Reform Journal 32

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Reform Issue 83 Spring 2003

This article appeared on pages 32 - 33 of the original journal.

Women in parliament: some milestones

1894 Women in South Australia are given the right to vote and stand for Parliament.

1899 Women in Western Australian are given the right to vote. The right to stand for election came in 1920.

1901 Women in SA and WA are able to vote at the first federal election because it was conducted under the electoral laws of the state.

1902 Women in New South Wales are given the right to vote. They were granted the right to stand for the Legislative Assembly in 1918 and the Legislative Council in 1926.

1902 All women (with the exception of Aboriginal women in some states) are given the right to vote for—and stand for election in—the Commonwealth Parliament.

1902 Women in Tasmania are given the right to vote (right to stand: 1921).

1905 Women in Queensland are given the right to vote (right to stand: 1915)

1908 Women in Victoria are given the right to vote (right to stand: 1923).

1921 Edith Cowan (Nationalist Party) becomes Australia’s first woman parliamentarian after being elected to the Legislative Assembly of the WA Parliament.

1943 Dame Enid Lyons (United Party of Australia) is the first woman to enter the Australian House of Representatives after being elected to the federal seat of Darwin (Tasmania). On the same day, Senator Dorothy Tangey (Australian Labor Party) becomes the first woman in the Senate, representing the State of Western Australia.

1962 The Commonwealth Electoral Act 1962 extends federal enfranchisement to Aborigines, without the necessity that they have the right to vote at state level.

1986 Joan Child (Australian Labor Party) becomes the first woman to be Speaker of the House of Representatives.

1986 Senator Janine Haines becomes the first woman to lead an Australian political party (the Australian Democrats).

1989 Rosemary Follett (Australian Labor Party) becomes the first female head of an Australian government when she becomes Chief Minister of the Australian Capital Territory.

1990 Dr Carmen Lawrence (Australian Labor Party) becomes the first woman Premier of Australia (Western Australia), followed later in the year by Joan Kirner (Australian Labor Party) in Victoria.

1996 Senator Margaret Reid (Liberal Party) becomes the first woman elected as President of the Senate.