:Women's suffrage in Australia

The first European-style governments established after 1788 were autocratic and run by appointed governors – although English law was transplanted into the Australian colonies by virtue of the doctrine of reception, thus notions of the rights and processes established by Magna Carta and the Bill of Rights 1689 were brought from Britain by the colonists. Agitation for representative government began soon after the settlement of the colonies.{{cite web |url=http://moadoph.gov.au/our-democracy/democracy-timeline/ |title=Our Democracy: Democracy timeline — Museum of Australian Democracy at Old Parliament House |publisher=Moadoph.gov.au |access-date=19 April 2011 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090929140952/http://moadoph.gov.au/our-democracy/democracy-timeline/ |archive-date=29 September 2009 |df=dmy-all }}

The oldest legislative body in Australia, the New South Wales Legislative Council, was created in 1825 as an appointed body to advise the Governor of New South Wales. In 1840 the Adelaide City Council and the Sydney City Council were established with limited male suffrage. Australia's first parliamentary elections were conducted for the New 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.{{cite web |url=http://aec.gov.au/Elections/Australian_Electoral_History/reform.htm |title=Australia's major electoral developments Timeline: 1788–1899 – Australian Electoral Commission |publisher=Aec.gov.au |date=11 June 2010 |access-date=19 April 2011 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110601193842/http://www.aec.gov.au/Elections/Australian_Electoral_History/reform.htm |archive-date=1 June 2011 |df=dmy-all }}

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 the goldfields evident at the Eureka Stockade and the ideas of the great reform movements sweeping Europe, the United States and the British Empire, such as Chartism. 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 established Constitutional Monarchies with the British monarch as the symbolic head of state.{{cite web |url=http://aec.gov.au/Elections/Australian_Electoral_History/righttovote.htm |title=The Right to Vote in Australia – Australian Electoral Commission |publisher=Aec.gov.au |date=26 November 2007 |access-date=19 April 2011 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130420032543/http://aec.gov.au/Elections/Australian_Electoral_History/righttovote.htm |archive-date=20 April 2013 |df=dmy-all }} 1855 also saw the granting of the right to vote to all male British subjects 21 years or over in South 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 universal male suffrage.

File: Womanhood Suffrage League of New South Wales.jpg

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. The Parliament of South Australia endorsed the right to vote and stand for parliament in 1894 and the law received royal assent in 1895.{{Cite web |title=Constitution (Female Suffrage) Act 1895 (SA) |url=https://www.foundingdocs.gov.au/item-sdid-44.html |access-date=26 August 2024 |website=Documenting a Democracy, Museum of Australian Democracy |postscript=. Note: The South Australian Parliament passed the legislation in December 1894 but the Act did not gain royal assent and become law until February 1895.}}{{cite book |last1=Fenna |first1=Alan |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=tDDiBAAAQBAJ&pg=PA312 |title=Government Politics in Australia |last2=Robbins |first2=Jane |last3=Summers |first3=John |date=5 September 2013 |publisher=Pearson Higher Education AU |isbn=978-1-4860-0138-5 |pages=312–}}{{Refn|South Australia celebrated the centenary of the female franchise in 1994; that is, 100 years from the date the legislation was passed by parliament rather that from the date it gained royal assent.{{Cite web |title=South Australian women gain the vote: Overview |url=https://www.parliament.sa.gov.au/en/About-Parliament/Women-in-Politics |access-date=5 September 2024 |website=Parliament South Australia}}.|group=note}} The law applied equally in the Northern 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.{{citation|title=Women's Almanac|date=2002|first=Doris|last=Weatherford|publisher=Oryx Press|isbn=1-57356-510-5|page=[https://archive.org/details/womensalmanac20000dori/page/322 322]|url=https://archive.org/details/womensalmanac20000dori/page/322}}

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.{{cite web |url=http://foundingdocs.gov.au/item.asp?dID=8 |title=Documenting Democracy |publisher=Foundingdocs.gov.au |access-date=19 April 2011 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20101203020826/http://www.foundingdocs.gov.au/item.asp?dID=8 |archive-date=3 December 2010 |df=dmy-all }} However the first woman would not be elected to the South Australia Council or Assembly until 1959.{{cite web | url=https://women-and-politics.collections.slsa.sa.gov.au/sa1.htm#:~:text=Joyce%20Steele%20(LCL)%20became%20the,South%20Australian%20House%20of%20Assembly | title=Women & Politics in South Australia }} The first women candidates for the South Australia Assembly ran in the 1918 general election, in Adelaide and Sturt.History of South Australian Elections, House of Assembly, volume 1 (accessible online)

Western Australia granted voting rights to white British women in 1900,{{cite web |url=http://www.aec.gov.au/Elections/Australian_Electoral_History/milestone.htm |title=Electoral Milestones for Women – Australian Electoral Commission |publisher=Aec.gov.au |date=17 December 2008 |access-date=19 April 2011 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131212103601/http://www.aec.gov.au/elections/australian_electoral_history/milestone.htm |archive-date=12 December 2013 |df=dmy-all }} 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.{{Cite chapter |last=Curthoys |first=Ann |title=The Cambridge History of Australia, Volume 1, Indigenous and Colonial Australia |last2=Mitchell |first2=Jessie |date=2013 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |isbn=978-1-1070-1153-3 |editor-last=Bashford |editor-first=Alison |pages=168 |chapter=The advent of self-government |editor-last2=Macintyre |editor-first2=Stuart}} The property qualification (ownership of land that was valued at least £100) excluded virtually all such persons from the franchise.{{cite book |last1=Evans |first1=Julie |url=https://library.oapen.org/bitstream/handle/20.500.12657/35059/341329.pdf |title=Equal subjects, unequal rights: Indigenous peoples in British settler colonies, 1830–1910 |last2=Grimshaw |first2=Patricia |last3=Philips |first3=David |last4=Swain |first4=Shurlee |publisher=Manchester University Press |year=2003 |isbn=978-0-71906-003-8 |doi=10.7228/manchester/9780719060038.001.0001 |access-date=7 February 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230208182609/https://library.oapen.org/bitstream/handle/20.500.12657/35059/341329.pdf |archive-date=8 February 2023 |url-status=live}}

{{Main|Women's suffrage in Victoria}}

In Victoria, one of the first known women to vote was London-born businesswoman Mrs Fanny Finch,{{cite web |last1=Sinclair |first1=Kacey |title=Hidden women of history: Australia's first known female voter, the famous Mrs Fanny Finch |url=https://theconversation.com/hidden-women-of-history-australias-first-known-female-voter-the-famous-mrs-fanny-finch-112962 |website=The Conversation |date=13 March 2019 |access-date=14 March 2019 |language=en}} on 22 January 1856 in the gold rush town of Castlemaine.{{Cite web|last=Guild|first=History|date=2021-08-16|title=Australia's first known female voter, the famous Mrs Fanny Finch|url=https://historyguild.org/australias-first-known-female-voter-the-famous-mrs-fanny-finch/|access-date=2021-08-21|website=History Guild|language=en-GB}} The first group of women are included in Helen Harris's “The Right to stand, the right to vote”. The Electoral Act 1863 enfranchised all ratepayers listed on local municipal rolls. Some women ratepayers in Victoria were able to vote at the 1864 colony election. However, the all-male legislature regarded this as a legislative mistake and promptly modified the Act in 1865, in time for the 1866 election, to apply the vote only to male ratepayers. Henrietta Dugdale, who publicly advocated women's suffrage since 1868, and Annie Lowe formed the Victorian Women's Suffrage Society in 1884, the first Australian women's suffrage society.{{Cite book|title=Australian Feminism A Companion|last=Audrey|first=Oldfield|publisher=Oxford University Press|year=1998|isbn=0195538188|editor-last=Caine|editor-first=Barbara|pages=452}} The Society called for votes for women on the same basis as men. 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 the 1911 state election, the last state to do so.{{cite web |url=https://www.parliament.vic.gov.au/about/the-history-of-parliament/women-in-parliament |title=Parliament of Victoria - Women in Parliament |access-date=2017-04-15 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170416044345/https://www.parliament.vic.gov.au/about/the-history-of-parliament/women-in-parliament |archive-date=16 April 2017 |df=dmy-all }} The Victorian Society disbanded in 1908,{{cite web|url=http://trove.nla.gov.au/people/505510?c=people|title=Victorian Women's Suffrage Society. (1884–1908) – People and organisations|website=Trove|access-date=28 March 2018|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170516035312/http://trove.nla.gov.au/people/505510?c=people|archive-date=16 May 2017|df=dmy-all}} after women in the state gained the vote.

In 1889, Rose Scott and Mary Windeyer helped to found the Women's Literary Society in Sydney, which grew into the Womanhood Suffrage League of New South Wales in 1891. Women from the Woman'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.{{Citation|last=Godden|first=Judith|title=Pottie, Eliza (1837–1907)|url=https://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/pottie-eliza-13155|work=Australian Dictionary of Biography|place=Canberra|publisher=National Centre of Biography, Australian National University|access-date=2021-02-27}}

In Queensland, the Women's Equal Franchise Association was formed in 1894, which collected two petitions in 1894 for women's suffrage.Oldfield, Audrey, Woman Suffrage in Australia: A Gift or a Struggle? Cambridge University Press, 1992, pp. 116, 119, 121. 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.{{Cite web | last=Jordan | first=Deborah | title=Leading the call for "one vote and no more": Emma Miller (1839–1917) | date=2012 | publisher=eScholarship Research Centre, The University of Melbourne | url=http://www.womenaustralia.info/leaders/sti/pdfs/04_Jordan.pdf | access-date=29 March 2018 | url-status=live | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160328135555/http://www.womenaustralia.info/leaders/sti/pdfs/04_Jordan.pdf | archive-date=28 March 2016 | df=dmy-all }}

A third petition was organised by the Woman'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.McCulloch, John E. S, "From suffragists to legislators", Central Queensland University Press, 2005. The Franchise Association disbanded in 1905 after white British women in the state gained the vote. Under the Queensland Elections Act (1885), no "aboriginal native of Australia, Asia, Africa, or the Islands of the Pacific" was entitled to vote.{{Cite web |last=Norberry |first=Jennifer |last2=Williams |first2=George |date=2002 |title=Voters and the Franchise: the Federal Story |url=https://parlinfo.aph.gov.au/parlInfo/download/library/prspub/VHN66/upload_binary/vhn668.pdf;fileType=application%2Fpdf |access-date=13 August 2024 |website=Australian Parliamentary Library, Parliament of Australia}}

The Womanhood Suffrage League of New South Wales submitted a petition to the Australasian 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.{{cite book |title=Official report of the National Australasian Convention debates: Adelaide March 22 to May 5, 1897 |date=1897 |publisher=C. E. Bristow |location=Adelaide |pages=[https://archive.org/details/officialrecordof01austuoft/page/32 32]-33 |url=https://archive.org/details/officialrecordof01austuoft |access-date=20 January 2020}}

A unified body, the Australian 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 Australia Mary Lee and Catherine Helen Spence; in Western Australia Edith Cowan; from New South Wales Maybanke Anderson, Louisa Lawson, Dora Montefiore and Rose Scott; from Tasmania Alicia O'Shea Petersen and Jessie Rooke; from Queensland Emma Miller; and from Victoria Annette Bear-Crawford, Henrietta Dugdale, Vida Goldstein, Alice Henry, Annie Lowe and Mary Colton.

In 1903, the Women's Political Association was formed.{{Cite web |last=Women's Political Association |date=2022-08-08 |title=Changing The World: The Women's Political Association |url=https://commonslibrary.org/changing-the-world-the-womens-political-association/ |access-date=2022-10-05 |website=The Commons Social Change Library |language=en-AU}}

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 formed Commonwealth 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 uniform Commonwealth Franchise Act 1902, which granted women equal voting rights to men at the federal level, albeit subject to racial restrictions.{{Cite web |last=corporateName=National Museum of Australia; address=Lawson Crescent |first=Acton Peninsula |title=National Museum of Australia - Franchise Act |url=https://www.nma.gov.au/defining-moments/resources/franchise-act |access-date=2024-07-26 |website=www.nma.gov.au |language=en}} 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.

In 1949, the Commonwealth 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. The Commonwealth Electoral Act 1961 removed the disqualification on Africans and Pacific Islanders, and the Commonwealth Electoral Act 1962 gave Indigenous Australians the option of enrolling to vote at Commonwealth and Northern Territory elections. The Commonwealth Electoral Amendment Act 1983 introduced compulsory voting for Indigenous Australians as was the case for other Australians.{{Cite web |last=Norberry |first=Jennifer |last2=Williams |first2=George |date=2002 |title=Voters and the Franchise: the Federal Story |url=https://parlinfo.aph.gov.au/parlInfo/download/library/prspub/VHN66/upload_binary/vhn668.pdf;fileType=application%2Fpdf |access-date=13 August 2024 |website=Australian Parliamentary Library, Parliament of Australia}}

{{Portal|Australia|Feminism}}

• Centenary of Women's Suffrage Gazebo
• Feminism in Australia
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• List of suffragists and suffragettes
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• Politics of Australia
• Suffrage in Australia
• Timeline of women's suffrage
• Voting rights of Indigenous Australians
• Women and government in Australia
• Women's history#Australia and New Zealand

{{Reflist|group=note}}

{{reflist|2}}

• Dixson, Miriam. The Real Matilda: Woman and Identity in Australia, 1788 to the Present (UNSW Press, 1999).
• Grieve, Norma, ed. Australian women: Feminist perspectives (Oxford University Press, 1981).
• Grimshaw, Patricia. "Settler anxieties, indigenous peoples, and women's suffrage in the colonies of Australia, New Zealand, and Hawai'i, 1888 to 1902." Pacific Historical Review 69.4 (2000): 553–572. [https://phr.ucpress.edu/content/ucpphr/69/4/553.full.pdf online]
• Grimshaw, Patricia, and Katherine Ellinghaus. "White women, Aboriginal women and the vote in Western Australia" in Women and Citizenship: Suffrage Centenary edited by Patricia Crawford, and Judy Skene.
• Lovenduski, Joni, and Jill Hills, eds. The Politics of the Second Electorate: Women and Public Participation: Britain, USA, Canada, Australia, France, Spain, West Germany, Italy, Sweden, Finland, Eastern Europe, USSR, Japan (Routledge, 2018).
• {{cite Q|Q107261467}}
• McGrath, Ann, and Winona Stevenson. "Gender, race, and policy: Aboriginal women and the state in Canada and Australia." Labour/Le Travail (1996): 37–53. [http://www.lltjournal.ca/index.php/llt/article/download/5046/5915 online]
• Oldfield, Audrey. Woman suffrage in Australia : a gift or a struggle? (1992) [https://archive.org/details/womansuffrageina00oldf online]
• Sawer, Marian, and Jill Vickers. "Women's constitutional activism in Australia and Canada." Canadian Journal of Women and Law 13 (2001): 1+.
• Tarrant, Stella. "The Woman Suffrage Movements in the United States and Australia: Concepts of Suffrage, Citizenship and Race." Adelaide Law Review 18 (1996): 47+. [https://heinonline.org/HOL/LandingPage?handle=hein.journals/adelrev18&div=7&id=&page= online]

• [http://www.utopiagirls.com.au/ Utopia Girls – How Women won the Vote. Website for ABC TV production about women's suffrage]

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Category:Women's rights in Australia