The Australian Women's Register

Dr Clare Burton was a strong advocate and activist for social change, particularly in the area of equal pay for women. Her academic research fed into policy and practical change in the workplace.

Judith Wright expressed her love of Australia and its people in her poetry. She was also a respected writer on poetry. Later in her life Wright was well known as a conservationist and campaigner for Aboriginal rights. Wright, a descendant of a pioneering pastoralist family, began writing poetry at the age of six for her ailing mother. At the age of 14 she became a boarder at the New England Girls School, and it was during her time there that she decided to become a poet.

After completing an Arts course at the University of Sydney, Wright worked in a variety of positions including that of research officer at Queensland University, where she helped Clem Christesen to edit Meanjin.

In 1975, Wright was the first woman appointed to the Council of Australian National University as the Governor-General’s nominee. She was founder and later president of the Wildlife Preservation Society of Queensland, and member of the National Parks Association of New South Wales and the South Coast Conservation Council. Wright was a patron of many organisations including: Campaign Against Nuclear Power (Queensland); Townsville Women’s Shelter; Amnesty International (Victoria.); Wildlife Preservation Society of Queensland and the National Forests Action Council (Victoria.).

In 1991, Wright became the second Australian – after Michael Thwaites in 1940 – to receive the Queen’s gold medal for poetry.

Joan Williams concludes her obituary on Judith Wright in The Guardian on July 5, 2000 with:
“Judith Wright is not a romantic, but makes her judgement on changes in the economy and lifestyle, the growth of industry and the swing from country to city. In her own way she has taken a step further for us in the expression of Australian national, spiritual and environment values in her poetry.”

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 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.

Edna Ryan was a leading figure in three eras of feminism in the 20th century. As a feminist and labour activist she is credited with achieving equal pay for women, maternity leave and work based child care. Ryan wrote numerous articles, conference papers, submissions to government and two books, Gentle invaders (1975) and Two thirds of a man (1984).

Dr Thelma Hunter was a feminist political scientist, whose academic career was mostly spent at the Australian National University (ANU). She described herself as a teacher, scholar and writer. As well as teaching university students, she worked in schools, in adult education and in preparatory courses for mature age non-matriculants seeking university entry. Before establishing her academic career, she contributed occasional articles to UK newspapers, and was later a regular contributor to the Canberra Times. A hobby artist, she offered drawing workshops to staff and students at ANU, having earlier studied art in evening classes in Sydney and at Dartington College, Devon.

For Thelma Hunter the personal was political; her academic interests in women’s employment, the status of women and the obstacles arising from combining work with marriage and family reflected her own experience. Growing up in an Italian family in Scotland, and later migrating with her family to Australia, Thelma Hunter also identified as a migrant.

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.