Early Promise Unfulfilled: The Electoral Representation of Women in Australia

Although Australia was one of the first countries to grant women the right to vote, it was not until much later that women began to gain election to parliament in any significant numbers. The right to vote on the same basis as men was granted to women as early as 1895 in South Australia, with Western Australia following suit in 1900. With the federation of the colonies in 1902, women gained the right to vote in Commonwealth elections, and in the next few years all of the new states followed, the last being Victoria in 1909.1 However, this early promise was largely unfulfilled and as table 6.1 indicates, it was not until 1943 that the first woman was elected to the national parliament; indeed, South Australia and Tasmania did not have a woman representative in their state lower houses until the 1950s.