Women's suffrage in Australia was one of the early achievements ofAustralian democracy. Following the progressive establishment of malesuffrage in the Australian colonies from the 1840s to the 1890s, an organised push for women's enfranchisement gathered momentum from the 1880s, and began to be legislated from the 1890s. South Australian women achieved the right to vote and to stand for office in 1895,[1] following theConstitutional Amendment (Adult Suffrage) Act 1894 which gained royal assent the following year. Western Australia granted women the right to vote from 1899, although with racial restrictions. In 1902, the newly establishedAustralian Parliament passed theCommonwealth Franchise Act 1902, which gave women equal voting rights to men and the right to stand for federal parliament (although excluding almost all non-white people of both sexes).[2] By 1908, the remainingAustralian states had legislated forwomen's suffrage for state elections.Grace Benny was elected as the first female local government councilor in 1919,[3]Edith Cowan the first state Parliamentarian in 1921,Dorothy Tangney the first Senator andEnid Lyons the first Member of the House of Representatives in 1943.
The first European-style governments established after 1788 wereautocratic and run by appointedgovernors – although English law was transplanted into the Australian colonies by virtue of thedoctrine of reception, thus notions of the rights and processes established byMagna Carta and theBill of Rights 1689 were brought from Britain by the colonists. Agitation for representative government began soon after the settlement of the colonies.[4]
The oldest legislative body in Australia, theNew South Wales Legislative Council, was created in 1825 as an appointed body to advise theGovernor of New South Wales. In 1840 theAdelaide City Council and theSydney City Council were established with limitedmale suffrage. Australia's first parliamentary elections were conducted for theNew South Wales Legislative Council in 1843, again with voting rights (for males only) tied to property ownership or financial capacity. Voter rights were extended further in New South Wales in 1850 and elections for legislative councils were held in the colonies of Victoria, South Australia, and Tasmania.[5]
By the mid-19th century, there was a strong desire for representative and responsible government in the colonies of Australia, fed by the democratic spirit of thegoldfields evident at theEureka Stockade and the ideas of the great reform movements sweepingEurope, theUnited States and theBritish Empire, such asChartism. The Australian Colonies Government Act, passed in 1850, was a landmark development that granted representative constitutions to New South Wales, Victoria, South Australia, and Tasmania and the colonies enthusiastically set about writing constitutions which produced democratically progressive parliaments – through the constitutions generally maintained the role of the colonial upper houses as representative of social and economic "interests" and all establishedConstitutional Monarchies with theBritish monarch as the symbolic head of state.[6] 1855 also saw the granting of the right to vote to all male British subjects 21 years or over inSouth Australia. This right was extended to Victoria in 1857 and New South Wales the following year. The other colonies followed until, in 1900, Tasmania became the last colony to grant universalmale suffrage.[5]
A movement for women's suffrage gathered pace during the 19th century. The experience and organisations involved in the suffrage movement varied across the colonies.
Propertied women in the colony of South Australia were granted the vote in local elections (but not parliamentary elections) in 1861. TheParliament of South Australia endorsed the right to vote and stand for parliament in 1894 andthe law received royal assent in 1895.[7][8][note 1] The law applied equally in theNorthern Territory, which was then a part of South Australia.
While the law was being debated, opponents of female suffrage amended the bill to allow women to also be elected to parliament, expecting that this would lead to the defeat of the entire bill. However, the amended bill was passed, giving women the right to hold legislative office when it granted them the right to vote.[10]
In 1897,Catherine Helen Spence became the first female political candidate for political office, unsuccessfully standing for election in South Australia as a delegate to Federal Convention on Australian Federation, which was held in Adelaide.[11] However the first woman would not be elected to the South Australia Council or Assembly until 1959.[3] The first women candidates for the South Australia Assembly ran in the 1918 general election, in Adelaide and Sturt.[12]
Western Australia granted voting rights to white British women in 1900,[13] in time for women in the colony state voting in the first federal election.The Constitution Act Amendment Act of 1893 had retained a property qualification for "Aboriginal natives of Australia, Asia or Africa" and people of mixed descent.[14] The property qualification (ownership of land that was valued at least £100) excluded virtually all such persons from the franchise.[15]
In Victoria, one of the first known women to vote was London-born businesswomanMrs Fanny Finch,[16] on 22 January 1856 in the gold rush town of Castlemaine.[17] The first group of women are included in Helen Harris's “The Right to stand, the right to vote”. TheElectoral Act 1863 enfranchised all ratepayers listed on local municipal rolls. Some women ratepayers in Victoria were able to vote at the1864 colony election. However, the all-male legislature regarded this as a legislative mistake and promptly modified the Act in 1865, in time for the1866 election, to apply the vote only to male ratepayers.Henrietta Dugdale, who publicly advocated women's suffrage since 1868, andAnnie Lowe formed theVictorian Women's Suffrage Society in 1884, the first Australian women's suffrage society.[18] The Society called for votes for women on the same basis as men.[19] It took 19 private members' bills from 1889 before Victorian women gained the vote in 1908, and were able to exercise the vote for the first time at the1911 state election, the last state to do so.[20] The Victorian Society disbanded in 1908,[19] after women in the state gained the vote.
In 1889,Rose Scott andMary Windeyer helped to found the Women's Literary Society inSydney, which grew into theWomanhood Suffrage League of New South Wales in 1891. Women from theWoman's Christian Temperance Union in New South Wales were also active in suffrage activities. They founded the Franchise League in 1890.Eliza Pottie served as president before the league's disbanding. She later joined the Womanhood Suffrage League.[21]
InQueensland, theWomen's Equal Franchise Association was formed in 1894, which collected two petitions in 1894 for women's suffrage.[22] The first petition received 7,781 signatures by women and the second received 3,575 signatures by men. The petitions called for one vote and one vote only, as at that time men with property had plural votes.[23]
A third petition was organised by theWoman's Christian Temperance Movement of Queensland in 1897 and attracted 3,869 signatures by men and women, and called for votes for women on the same basis as men.[24] The Franchise Association disbanded in 1905 after white British women in the state gained the vote. Under theQueensland Elections Act (1885), no "aboriginal native of Australia, Asia, Africa, or the Islands of the Pacific" was entitled to vote.[25]
The Womanhood Suffrage League of New South Wales submitted a petition to theAustralasian Federal Convention on 23 March 1897 calling for the right of women to vote in New South Wales, Tasmania, Victoria and Western Australia to be enshrined in the constitution.[26]
A unified body, theAustralian Women's Suffrage Society was formed in 1889, with the aim of educating women and men about a woman's right to vote and stand for parliament. Key figures in the Australian suffrage movement included: from South AustraliaMary Lee andCatherine Helen Spence; in Western AustraliaEdith Cowan; from New South WalesMaybanke Anderson,Louisa Lawson,Dora Montefiore and Rose Scott; from TasmaniaAlicia O'Shea Petersen andJessie Rooke; from QueenslandEmma Miller; and from VictoriaAnnette Bear-Crawford, Henrietta Dugdale,Vida Goldstein,Alice Henry,Annie Lowe andMary Colton.
In 1903, theWomen's Political Association was formed.[27]
The various suffrage societies collected signatures for monster suffrage petitions to be tabled in Parliament. The results varied. Recently some of these petitions have been transcribed and can be searched digitally.
The first election for the Parliament of the newly formedCommonwealth of Australia in 1901 was based on the electoral laws of the six federating colonies, so that women who had the vote and the right to stand for Parliament at a colony (now state) level (i.e., in South Australia including the Northern Territory and Western Australia) had the same rights for the 1901 Australian federal election. In 1902, the Commonwealth Parliament passed the uniformCommonwealth Franchise Act 1902, which granted women equal voting rights to men at the federal level, albeit subject to racial restrictions.[28] This franchise explicitly excluded women (and men) who were "aboriginal natives" of Australia, Africa, Asia, and the Pacific Islands (except New Zealand), unless they were already enrolled to vote in an Australian state.[2]
In 1949, theCommonwealth Electoral Bill was enacted giving Aboriginal people the right to vote at Commonwealth elections if they were enfranchised under a State law or were a current or former member of the defence forces. TheCommonwealth Electoral Act 1961 removed the disqualification on Africans and Pacific Islanders, and theCommonwealth Electoral Act 1962 gave Indigenous Australians the option of enrolling to vote at Commonwealth and Northern Territory elections. TheCommonwealth Electoral Amendment Act 1983 introduced compulsory voting for Indigenous Australians as was the case for other Australians.[29]
| Right to §vote | Right to stand for Parliament | |
|---|---|---|
| Commonwealth | 1901 (South Australia and Western Australia) 1902 (other states) | 1902 |
| State | ||
| South Australia | 1895[30] | 1895 |
| Western Australia | 1899 | 1920 |
| New South Wales[31] | 1902 | 1918 |
| Tasmania | 1903 | 1921 |
| Queensland | 1905 | 1915 |
| Victoria | 1908 | 1923 |
| *There wereracial restrictions, on the right to vote in Queensland, Western Australia and the Commonwealth | ||
| Local government (Councils) | Right to vote (a) | Right to stand | First elected |
|---|---|---|---|
| State | |||
| South Australia | 1861 | 1914 | 1919,Grace Benny |
| Western Australia | 1876 | 1919 | 1920,Elizabeth Clapham |
| Victoria | 1903 | 1914 | 1920,Mary Rogers |
| Queensland | 1879 | 1920 | 1923,Ellen Kent Hughes[32] |
| City of Brisbane | 1924 | 1924 | 1949,Petronel White |
| Tasmania | |||
| Rural | 1893 | 1911 | 1957,Florence Vivien Pendrigh |
| Hobart City Council | 1893 | 1902 | 1952,Mabel Miller |
| Launceston City Council | 1894 | 1945 | 1950,Dorothy Edwards |
| New South Wales | |||
| Sydney City Council | 1900 | 1918 | 1965,Joan Mercia Pilone |
| Municipalities and Shires | 1906 | 1918 | 1928,Lilian Fowler |
| (a)The right to vote in local elections was not necessarily universal since there were property ownership restrictions, as well asracial restrictions, on the right to vote in many local jurisdictions.[33] | |||
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