The Australian Women's Register

Pamela Kilborn was appointed a Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) in 1971 and a Member of the Order of Australia (AM) in 2008.

Janice Crosswhite has experience in sport and recreation at a local, state and federal level, having taught physical education, been a sports administrator and a sport and recreation consultant. Janice was the founding president of Womensport and Recreation New South Wales and is now a board member of Womensport & Recreation Victoria. She is also on the Executive Board of the International Association for Physical Education and Sport for Girls and Women. She is the founding and current (2007) president of the Australian Womensport and Recreation Association. Her OAM recognizes her services to the community and women’s sport.

Jill Reichstein is Chair of the Reichstein Foundation and an advocate of social change philanthropy. Mentor to many Australian women philanthropists, she is a member of the Committee of Management for Changemakers Australia and has served on the boards of the Melbourne Community Foundation, the Foundation for Young Australians, the Community Support Fund Community Advisory Council, the Trust for Young Australians, the Mietta Foundation, the Koori Heritage Trust, and Philanthropy Australia.

Goldie Alexander was an author of books, short stories and articles for adults and children of all ages. Her book Mavis Road Medley (1991) was chosen by the State Library of Victoria and the Australian Centre for Youth Literature as one of their 150 ‘treasures’ to celebrate 150 years of the library.

Cheryl McKinna was elected President of the University of Melbourne Sports Union in 1978 and then selected as Director of Sport and Physical Recreation in 1980. Having completed a Diploma in Physical Education and being actively engaged in sport at the university, she was concerned about issues of equity and regarded her step into sporting administration as part of an on-going process. She wanted people of all abilities to include sport in their experience of university life and hoped to encourage women to use the sporting facilities more regularly. ‘There is still the attitude that it is unfeminine for women to participate in sport and to sweat,’ she observed in 1978. The first woman to take on the role, she was more qualified in sports administration than any of the previous five holders of the office.

Val Allpress was appointed secretary of the University of Melbourne Australian football club, University Blues, in 1983. Her husband was an umpire and in 1982, after coming home from umpiring a grand final in which the Blues had been beaten again, she remarked that ‘What they need is a good woman to organise them’. Shortly afterwards, she was asked to accept the job as secretary.

Lyn Allison was elected to the Senate for Victoria in 1996 and 2001, becoming Leader of the Australian Democrats in 2004. She was an outspoken campaigner on health, education, environment, nuclear and women’s issues. She was defeated at the November 2007 election and left the Senate on 30 June 2008.

Jacinta Collins was chosen to represent Victoria for the Australian Labor Party in the Senate in 1995. She was elected to the same position in 1998, but defeated at the general elections in 2004. She was re-appointed in May 2008 on the resignation of Senator Robert Ray, but she had been re-elected at the 2007 general election and took her seat in the Senate for a term of six years on 1 July 2008. She held the portfolio of Health and Ageing for a short period before the 2013 election, when she was re-elected and the Labor Government was defeated.

Anna Burke, a member of the Australian Labor Party, was elected to the House of Representatives of the Parliament of Australia representing Chisholm, Victoria,between 1998 and 2016. After the 2007 election, she was elected as Deputy Speaker of the House of Representatives and in 2012 assumed the Speaker’s role until August 2013.

On 16 January 2017, Burke was appointed as a full-time Member of the General, Freedom of Information, and Veterans’ Appeals Divisions of the Administrative Appeals Tribunal, with her term to end on 15 January 2024.

In the 2019 Australia Day Honours Burke was made an Officer of the Order of Australia for “distinguished service to the Parliament of Australia, particularly as Speaker of the House of Representatives, and to the community”.

Ann Corcoran was elected to the House of Representatives for Isaacs, Victoria, representing the Australian Labor Party, at a by-election in August 2000. She was re-elected in 2001 and 2004. She retired before the 2007 election.

Before entering the Federal Parliament she stood for the Legislative Assembly seat of Sandringham at the Victorian state election, which was held on 2 March 1985.

Judith Graley was elected as Member of the Legislative Assembly for Narre Warren South in November 2006, representing the Australian Labor Party. In 2002 she stood as a candidate for the Australian Labor Party in the Legislative Assembly seat of Mornington, but was unsuccessful on that occasion. She was re-elected to Narre Warren in November 2010 and in November 2014. She held the position of Parliamentary Secretary to the Deputy premier in the Labor Government, which came to power in November 2014.

Graley did not seek re-election at the 2018 state election, and retired from parliament in October 2018.

Before her entry into state Parliament, Judith Graley served as a local government councillor for the Mornington Peninsula Shire Council from 1997-2003 and was its mayor from 2000-2001.

Fiona Richardson was an Australian politician, who joined the Australian Labor Party (ALP) in 1991. She was elected Member of the Legislative Assembly for Northcote in the Parliament of Victoria in November 2006, was re-elected in November 2010 and again in November 2014. She served as Minister for Women and Minister for Prevention of Family Violence in the Labor Government after they were elected in November 2014. She oversaw the establishment of the Victorian Royal Commission into Family Violence in 2015, which tabled its report to Parliament in 2016.

Richardson passed away at the far too young age of 50, from breast cancer.

Heidi Victoria was elected Member for Bayswater, in the Legislative Assembly of the Parliament of Victoria in November 2006, representing the Liberal Party. She was re-elected at the election which was held on 27 November 2010 and again in November 2014, when the Labor Party returned to power.

In March 2013, after serving as Parliamentary Secretary for the Arts and Parliamentary Secretary to the Premier of Victoria she was appointed Minister for the Arts, Consumer Affairs and Women’s Affairs.
On the defeat of the Liberal Government in November 2014, she currently holds the Shadow Portfolios of Major Events; Arts and Culture and Aboriginal Affairs.

Ms Victoria was born in Melbourne, Victoria. She has been involved in community work for over 30 years with not-for profit organisations including SCOPE and the Make-A-Wish Foundation . She also served on the Australian board of the National Council of Women as company secretary.

Passionate about fighting injustice Minister Victoria’s move into politics in 2006 was a logical one.

As the mother of a young daughter, she became involved in a community lobbying campaign to save her local primary school’s English/German language immersion program- which had been recognised as one the State’s leading bilingual education success stories for nearly three decades — from closure.

Ms Victoria has a BA in Fine Arts (Photography) and spent several years running her own photographic business, specialising in portrait and event photography.

Mary Wooldridge was elected Member of the Legislative Assembly for Doncaster in November 2006, representing the Liberal Party. She was Shadow Minister for Mental Health, Drug Abuse and Aged Care. She was re- elected in November 2010 and was a Minister in the Liberal Government, holding the portfolios of Mental Health, Women’s Affairs and Community Service. Her seat was abolished in a redistribution for the 2014 election, and she was subsequently elected to the Victorian Legislative Council for Eastern Metropolitan Region in November’s state election. She held the Shadow portfolio of Health and was Leader of the Opposition and of the Liberal Party in the Legislative Council.

Wooldridge announced her intention to retire from state politics on 8 December 2019, using the moment to call on the Liberal Party to consider gender quotas as a way of increasing female representation in the Victorian Parliament.

Colleen Hartland was elected Member for the Legislative Council for the Western Metropolitan Region in November 2006, representing the Australian Greens. She was re-elected in 2010 and again in 2014. Before her election to the state parliament, she stood as an Independent candidate in the Legislative Assembly seat of Footscray at the Victorian state election, which was held on 3 October 1992.

Jan Kronberg was elected MLC for the Eastern Metropolitan Region in November 2006, representing the Liberal Party in the Victorian parliament. She was re-elected in 2010 as a member of the Liberal Government, but retired at the November 2014 election.

Sue Pennicuik was elected Member of the Legislative Council for the Southern Metropolitan Region in November 2006, representing the Australian Greens (Victoria). She was re-elected at both the 2010 and 2014 elections. She has held the position of Victorian Greens Whip in the Legislative Council since 2006.

Donna Petrovich was elected Member for the Legislative Council for Northern Victoria in November 2006, representing the Liberal Party. She resigned from state parliament on 1 July 2013 in order to stand as a candidate for the seat of McEwen at the 2013 federal election, but was unsuccessful.

Jaala Pulford was elected Member for the Legislative Council for Western Victoria in November 2006, representing the Australian Labor Party. She was re-elected in 2010 and in 2014. She is currently serving as Minister for Agriculture, Regional Development and Deputy Leader of the Government in the Legislative Council in the Labor Government, which returned to power in 2014 after its defeat in 2010.

Freelance journalist Ros Bower wrote for the Sun, the Argus, and Woman’s Day. She worked in television production and was employed as a consultant by the Australian Council for the Arts.

Marien Dreyer wrote numerous scripts for the Australian Broadcasting Commission from the 1940s to the 1960s, and was author of the popular New Idea column ‘This Week with Marien Dreyer’ from 1955 to 1962.