Numbers too big to ignore: women politicians in the ACT.
In 2016 the ACT Legislative Assembly became the first female-majority jurisdiction in the country, with 13 of the 25 members being women. The involvement of women in ACT elected representative bodies reflects the story of the Territory’s development and the growing prominence of women as active citizens.
There are many layers of history before self-government and establishment of the ACT Legislative Assembly in 1989 – the long period of Aboriginal sovereignty, occupation from the nineteenth century by early white settlers, and the creation and development of the national capital from the early twentieth century. The ACT remained under Commonwealth control until 1989, with limited representation in the Federal Parliament until 1966 and through advisory bodies to Commonwealth ministers: the ACT Advisory Council (1930–1974) and the ACT House of Assembly (1974–1986).
Fifty-five ACT women have been elected to these bodies: the earliest were Mary Stevenson (1951) and Ann Dalgarno (1959) who served on the ACT Advisory Council. Senator Susan Ryan was elected in the federal election of 1975 as one of the first two Senators for the Australian Capital Territory. Ros Kelly became the first female representative for Canberra in the House of Representatives in 1980.
The pace of women’s involvement in politics has accelerated greatly since ACT self-government in 1989. In that year Labor’s Rosemary Follett was the first elected female head of government in any Australian state or territory. Liberal Kate Carnell became Chief Minister in 1995; Labor’s Katie Gallagher was the ACT’s third female Chief Minister in 2011.
The ACT’s Hare-Clark proportional voting system of multi-member electorates gives voters the opportunity to select their own preferences for candidates within their chosen political parties to represent them. It is notable that they are choosing to elect women.
This online exhibition brings together biographies of these women. It reveals the trails they have blazed from the once-prevalent view that politics and civic leadership were the exclusive domain of men, to the normalisation of women’s involvement in the political process.
This exhibition was supported with funding from the ACT Government Heritage Grants Program.
