- Women in the New South Wales Legislative Assembly
There have been 48 women in the
New South Wales Legislative Assembly since its establishment in 1856. Women have had the right to vote in the assembly since 1902 and the right to stand as a candidate since 1918.The first successful candidate for the Legislative Assembly was
Millicent Preston-Stanley , who was elected as a Nationalist representative for the multi-member electorate of Eastern Suburbs in 1925, but only lasted one term before being defeated. Fourteen years later,Mary Quirk held the seat of Balmain for Labor after the death of her husband, becoming the first Labor woman in the Assembly. However, successful women candidates in the Legislative Assembly remained few and far between until the 1980s.In the early 1980s, women began to break through into senior positions in the state;
Janice Crosio became the first woman to serve as a minister in state parliament, serving in the Wran Labor ministry, and she was followed on the conservative side of politics by Rosemary Foot, who served as the deputy leader of the Liberal Party for a time. In 1996, LiberalKerry Chikarovski became the first woman to lead a major party in New South Wales, although she was deposed in 2003. As of 2007, no woman has served as Speaker of the Legislative Assembly.While there had been a number of women elected to the Legislative Council throughout the middle of the twentieth century, it was only at the 1988 state election that numbers began to grow in the Legislative Assembly. Seven women had been elected in the previous 132 years; six more joined them the 1988 election. Numbers have improved substantially in recent years, with women now occupying 25 seats in the current parliament. While far more than the pre-1988 situation, this still consists of less than a quarter of the seats in the Assembly.
Names in bold indicate women who have been appointed as Ministers and Parliamentary Secretaries during their time in Parliament. Names in "italics" indicate entry into Parliament through a by-election and * symbolises members that have sat as members in both the Legislative Assembly and the Legislative Council.
ee also
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Women and government in Australia
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