The Australian Women's Register

Rebecca Vassarotti was elected as a Greens member for the seat of Kurrajong in the ACT election of October 2020 and was subsequently appointed Minister for the Environment, Parks and Land Management, Minister for Heritage, Minister for Homelessness and Housing Services and Minister for Sustainable Building and Construction. In March 2024, following a ballot of Party members, she was elected Deputy Leader of the ACT Greens. She stood in the 2024 election but was not re-elected. She returned to the Legislative Assembly in June 2026 to fill a casual vacancy.

A member of the Australian Labor Party, Anika Wells was elected to the House of Representatives division of Lilley in the Australian Parliament at the general election held on 18 May 2019. A complete record of her parliamentary service, including a link to her first speech, can be found in the Parliamentary Handbook of the Commonwealth of Australia (see below).

A member of the Australian Labor Party, Kate Thwaites was elected to the House of Representatives Victorian division of Jagajaga in the Australian Parliament at the general election held on 18 May 2019. A complete record of her parliamentary service, including a link to her first speech, can be found in the Parliamentary Handbook of the Commonwealth of Australia (see below).

Born in Hungary, Marina Tyndale-Biscoe migrated with her family to Australia in 1949 and grew up in Tasmania. She moved to Canberra in 1962, joining the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) as an entomologist, studying bushflies which breed in fresh cow dung and were a serious health hazard in summer. She went on to play a major role in a team assessing the suitability of foreign dung beetles for controlling the breeding cycle of bushflies. As a result, summers in south eastern Australia and Tasmania are no longer bedevilled by flies, which has had a major beneficial impact on the outdoor lifestyles of Australians.

Bettina Gorton was a linguist whose involvement with the compilation of a Malay-English dictionary at the Australian National University in Canberra was interrupted by the appointment of her husband, John Gorton, as Australian Prime Minister from 1968 to 1971.

Ruth Dobson was the first woman career diplomat appointed as an ambassador for Australia, to Denmark from 1974 to 1978 and then to Ireland from 1978 to 1981, having previously served in London, Geneva (for the Australian United Nations delegation), New Zealand, Manila and Athens. Her diplomatic career was interrupted when she was seconded to Government House in 1965 as private secretary to Lady Maie Casey, the Governor-General’s wife, until 1967. She was appointed an Officer in the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in 1982 following her retirement from the diplomatic service.

The Canberra Women’s Liberation Group was formed in June 1970 after two women from Sydney Women’s Liberation spoke to eight female anti-Vietnam War activists, who decided to meet on a weekly basis on Wednesday evenings, to discuss their own form of oppression. The weekly meetings continued until 1976. One of its founding members was Julia Ryan. Their meetings were held in different houses in Canberra suburbs until 1975, when they shared Canberra Women’s House with the Women’s Electoral Lobby and the Abortion Counselling Service.

The Women’s Studies Program was established at the Australian National University in 1976 as the result of activism and political pressure applied by students who were connected to the Women’s Liberation movement. In the first instance, the program’s key aims were to explore the position and representation of women in Australian and other societies, the forces producing female subjectivity and women’s experiences of femininity. Moving the examination of these questions into the academy was an important step in the development of a feminist critique of existing disciplines and institutional structures and the development of feminist scholarship in general.

The ACT Women’s Consultative Council was established in 1989 by the then chief minister Rosemary Follett to advise the chief minister on the status of women and women’s issues. It ceased operation in 2001.

Beryl Women’s Refuge was the first women’s refuge for women and children escaping domestic violence in the ACT. It provided accommodation and a range of legal, welfare and health services to a diverse range of clients.

The National Social Welfare Commission was created by the Whitlam Labor Government in 1972. It was abolished in 1975 following the election of the Fraser Liberal-National Party Government.

As Chair of the Commission, Marie Coleman introduced the Australian Assistance Plan..

Marie Coleman was Director from 1975.

The Family Support Program was a youth refuge program introduced under the Office of Child Care when Marie Coleman was Director.

The first National Women’s Conference was held in Canberra in 1990. It was organised by Marie Coleman and other members of the National Foundation for Australian Women.

Canberra Mothercraft Society (CMS) was established in 1929, one of many women’s organisations at the time which formed around the National Council of Women in the Australian Capital Territory to meet the needs of public servants being transferred to the new capital city, and of workmen engaged in building it.

The federal government (Whitlam) appointed the International Women’s Year National Advisory Committee to oversee the distribution of government funding for projects between 1974 and 1976 associated with the United Nations-proclaimed International Year of Women (1975). Australia’s activities for the International Year of Women were also supported by a secretariat under Elizabeth Reid, the women’s advisor to the Prime Minister. Reid also convened the committee. Membership included Ruby Hammond, Irene Greenwood, Caroline Jones, Margaret Whitlam and Shirley Castley.

The committee attracted criticism from some activists in the Women’s Liberation movement over spending priorities. However, seed and grant funding assisted the development of many important organizations and publications including the Working Women’s Centre and Dr Kay Daniels’s Women in Australia An Annotated Guide to Records.

The federal government replaced the National Women’s Advisory Council with the National Women’s Consultative Council in 1984. The NWCC produced its last report in December 1992 and in late 1993 it was replaced by the Australian Council for Women.

The National Women’s Round Table is an annual meeting convened by the Minister Assisting the Prime Minister for the Status of Women. The Round Table was first held in 1994. It replaced the National Women’s Consultative Council as the primary direct mechanism for women’s input into government. For the first three years, the Round Table was held twice each year for one day, with just over 50 organisations represented. Meetings were held in Parliament House during sitting weeks to facilitate participants’ access to Parliamentarians.

In 1997, the Minister Assisting the Prime Minister for the Status of Women, Jocelyn Newman, changed the arrangements to two day meetings, once each year.

Sources: http://www.capow.org.au/AWOC/story.htm and http://www.nwjc.org.au/pamelaslist.htm

AWOC is a conference for representatives of Australian women’s organisations. It replaced the traditional ‘Pre-Round Tables’ which were generally held on the days preceding the National Women’s Round Table (NWRT). It brings the input of organisations not participating in the NWRT to that forum.

The inaugural AWOC was organised by the National Women’s Justice Coalition, the Nursing Mothers’ Association of Australia, Women’s Electoral Lobby Australia and the YWCA, with program input from representatives of national women’s organisations on Pamela’s List.

Sources: http://www.nwjc.org.au/pamelaslist.htm and http://www.capow.org.au/AWOC/story.htm

The Office for Women (previously the Office of the Status of Women) works to mainstream women’s issues in Australian society and internationally. Its work with governments, the women’s sector, and the broader community is focused on three priority areas:

• Reducing violence against women
• Women’s equal place in society
• Economic Independence.

CAPOW! is a networking coalition for women’s non-government organisations (NGOs) in Australia Since its foundation in 1992 at a WEL national conference CAPOW! has played a major role in developing cooperative ventures and mechanisms across the women’s movement. It held twice-yearly face-to-face meetings for this purpose.

CAPOW! helped coordinate NGO forums to facilitate submissions to the federal government and the United Nations World Conference on Women in Beijing, (September 1995). It has since worked to follow up the commitments made by the Government and NGOs at Beijing, and continues to encourage women’s’ NGOs to make submissions to the government.

By 1996 the CAPOW network linked more than sixty national women’s organisations and served to improve information flow and coordination of advocacy in international as well as domestic spheres.

Formed under the leadership of Sara Dowse, the Office of Women’s Affairs (OWA) was the bureaucratic support unit of the women’s adviser to the Prime Minister, a position created in 1973 under the Whitlam Labour government. OWA became the state apparatus through which many Australian feminists worked to achieve measures of women’s advancement in equal employment opportunity, legislation and law reform, health funding, refuges, childcare, arts and sport, media representations and school curricula.
The OWA played an important role in securing government funding for women’s services. The Office was originally located in the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet. However, in 1977, under the Fraser Liberal government, bureaucrats announced the Office was to move to the Department of Home Affairs, representing a significant loss of status given Home Affairs was ranked 26th out of 27 ministries in seniority. Dowse resigned over this move, having always argued for the importance of having the Office located in the chief policy-making agency of the government (Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet). The Office (by then called the Office of the Status of Women) was restored to the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet in 1983 when Labour returned to office; prominent feminist academic Anne Summers was then appointed its head.

Sources: Sawer, M. 1996 and Caine, B. 1998

The Women’s Constitutional Convention met at Parliament House, Canberra, 29-30 January 1998. Discussions included whether or not Australia should become a republic, women’s place in politics and the status of women in Australia.
Source: RAAM

An amphitheatre located in the eucalypt lawn was erected as a memorial to Dr Burbidge’s contribution to Australian botany.

The Catholic Women’s League Australia (CWLA) was established in 1975. It evolved from the Australian Council of Catholic Women, which began in 1928. Its major objectives are to enable women to participate more effectively in working for and building Christianity by promoting the spiritual, cultural, intellectual and social development of women. It aims to foster ecumenism and inter-faith dialogue and provides a national forum for the voice of the Catholic Women’s League Organisations in Australia.

The Catholic Women’s League Archdiocese of Canberra and Goulburn was established on 8 November 1945. It began as a small group in St Christopher’s Parish, Canberra to provide hostesses for official parish occasions and to raise money for the church community. It spread later to the city of Goulburn, to town and country centres outside the Archdiocese. Its affiliation with the Federal Council of Catholic Women of Australia in 1953 meant that its agenda broadened from parish affairs to the wider community and to matters of national and global importance to women and their families. It now promotes the intellectual, spiritual, cultural and social welfare of women. It is affiliated with the Catholic Women’s League Australia Inc.