women's rights

By miniguy

  • First Female Workers Riot occured at the Parramatta Female Factory over conditions and food deprivation.

  • Women’s Suffrage League formed in South Australia

  • The proclamation of South Australia's Suffrage Act, assented to by Queen Victoria on 2 February, gave women an equal right with men to vote, and to stand for election to the Colony's House of Assembly. 
Women with property could also vote in Legislative

  • West Australian women win the vote in WA elections with Queen Victoria’s assent to the Bill passed by the WA parliament on 15 December 1899

  • Queen Victoria's Assent enacts the Commonwealth of Australia Constitution

  • Commonwealth Franchise Act grants right to vote and stand for election for the Australian parliament to women on the same basis as men, with Aboriginal people in some States still without this right

  • Vida Goldstein, Nellie Martel, and Mary Ann Moore Bentley stand for the Senate, and Selina Siggins for the seat of Dalley in the House of Representatives

  • Tasmanian women won an equal right with men to vote in elections for the House of Assembly. Women with property were eligible to vote for the Legislative Council and from 29 October 1920 those who served in the 1914-18 war were also eligible to vote for t

  • Opening of the Australian Exhibition of Women’s Work in Melbourne by Lady Northcote, with Pattie Deakin running a model creche during the five-week exhibition showcasing the work of musicians, artists and craftswomen

  • Women in Victoria won an equal right with men to vote in State elections. Only women who met the propery qualification could vote in Legislative Council elections. Victorian women won an equal right o stand for election to both Houses of their State parli

  • Edith Cowan (Nationalist, West Perth) became the first woman to be elected to an Australian parliament. She served in the Western Australian Legislative Assembly until 22 March 1924.

  • Bessie Rischbieth founded this federated body of Australian women’s political associations as a national group to liaise with international feminist organisations and establish credentials as lobbyists and advisers at the League of Nations.

  • Millicent Preston-Stanley, elected to the NSW Legislative Assembly in May 1925, delivered her first speech two weeks after the opening of the parliament.

  • Dame Enid Lyons becomes a member of the House of Representatives for the United Australia Party, and the Australian Labor Party’s Dorothy Tangney takes a seat in the Senate representing West Australia

  • After decades of campaigning, Australian women workers win equal pay rates with men doing comparable work under an Arbitration Commission decision for incremental increases, with pay parity eventually achieved in 1972

  • The Women's Electoral Lobby (WEL) began in Feb 1972 when 10 women met in a femisnists home to disuss ways of playing a more influential role in the election planned for December that year.