Timeline
There have been 51 women in the South Australian House of Assembly since its establishment in 1857. Women have had the right to vote and the right to stand as candidates since 1894.
In 1895, South Australian women became the first state in Australia, and some of the first in the world, to be given the right to vote and stand for election to Parliament. The following year at the 1896 election, the first women in Australia voted. Ironically, South Australia was the last state to elect a female representative, at the 1959 election, when Jessie Cooper and Joyce Steele were elected to the Parliament of South Australia for the Liberal and Country League (LCL). Molly Byrne was the first Labor woman in the House at the 1965 election.
Women have been continuously represented in the House since. Steele would also become the first female minister in 1968. Only two women have represented minor parties, these being Heather Southcott for the Democrats in 1982, and Karlene Maywald for the Nationals from 1997 to 2010. Liberal Isobel Redmond in 2009 became the first and only woman to lead a major party in South Australia when she became Leader of the Opposition. Labor's Lyn Breuer from 2010 to 2013 was the first and only female Speaker of the South Australian House of Assembly. South Australia has not had a female Premier or Treasurer.
Names in bold indicate women who have been appointed as Ministers and Parliamentary Secretaries during their time in Parliament. Names in italics indicate women who were first elected at a by-election. An asterisk (*) indicates that the member also served in the Legislative Council.
| # | Name | Party | Electoral Division | Period of service |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Joyce Steele | LCL | Burnside Davenport | 7 March 1959 – 30 May 1970 30 May 1970 – 9 March 1973 (retired) |
| 2 | Molly Byrne | Labor | Barossa Tea Tree Gully Todd | 6 March 1965 – 30 May 1970 30 May 1970 – 17 September 1977 17 September 1977 – 14 September 1979 (defeated) |
| 3 | Jennifer Cashmore | Liberal | Coles | 17 September 1977 – 10 December 1993 (retired) |
| 4 | Heather Southcott | Democrats | Mitcham | 8 May 1982 – 5 November 1982 (defeated) |
| 5 | June Appleby | Labor | Brighton Hayward | 6 November 1982 – 7 December 1985 7 December 1985 – 24 November 1989 (defeated) |
| Susan Lenehan | Labor | Mawson | 6 November 1982 – 11 December 1993 (defeated) | |
| 7 | Di Gayler | Labor | Newland | 7 December 1985 – 24 November 1989 (defeated) |
| 8 | Colleen Hutchison | Labor | Stuart | 25 November 1989 – 11 December 1993 (defeated) |
| Dorothy Kotz | Liberal | Newland | 25 November 1989 – 17 March 2006 (retired) | |
| 10 | Julie Greig | Liberal | Reynell | 11 December 1993 – 11 October 1997 (defeated) |
| Joan Hall | Liberal | Coles Morialta | 11 December 1993 – 9 February 2002 9 February 2002 – 17 March 2006 (defeated) | |
| Annette Hurley | Labor | Napier | 11 December 1993 – 9 February 2002 (defeated) | |
| Liz Penfold | Liberal | Flinders | 11 December 1993 – 20 March 2010 (retired) | |
| Lorraine Rosenberg | Liberal | Kaurna | 11 December 1993 – 11 October 1997 (defeated) | |
| 15 | Lea Stevens | Labor | Elizabeth Little Para | 9 April 1994 – 18 March 2006 18 March 2006 – 20 March 2010 (retired) |
| 16 | Robyn Geraghty | Labor | Torrens | 7 May 1994 – 15 March 2014 (retired) |
| 17 | Trish White | Labor | Taylor | 5 November 1994 – 20 March 2010 (retired) |
| 18 | Frances Bedford | Labor/Independent | Florey | 11 October 1997 – 19 March 2022 (defeated) |
| Lyn Breuer | Labor | Giles | 11 October 1997 – 15 March 2014 (retired) | |
| Vini Ciccarello | Labor | Norwood | 11 October 1997 – 20 March 2010 (defeated) | |
| Steph Key | Labor | Hanson Ashford | 11 October 1997 – 9 February 2002 9 February 2002 – 17 March 2018 (retired) | |
| Karlene Maywald | National | Chaffey | 11 October 1997 – 20 March 2010 (defeated) | |
| Jennifer Rankine | Labor | Wright | 11 October 1997 – 17 March 2018 (retired) | |
| Gay Thompson | Labor | Reynell | 11 October 1997 – 15 March 2014 (retired) | |
| 25 | Vickie Chapman | Liberal | Bragg | 9 February 2002 – 31 May 2022 (resigned) |
| Jane Lomax-Smith | Labor | Adelaide | 9 February 2002 – 20 March 2010 (defeated) | |
| Isobel Redmond | Liberal | Heysen | 9 February 2002 – 17 March 2018 (retired) | |
| 28 | Chloë Fox | Labor | Bright | 18 March 2006 – 15 March 2014 (defeated) |
| Grace Portolesi | Labor | Hartley | 18 March 2006 – 15 March 2014 (defeated) | |
| Lindsay Simmons | Labor | Morialta | 18 March 2006 – 20 March 2010 (defeated) | |
| 31 | Rachel Sanderson | Liberal | Adelaide | 20 March 2010 – 19 March 2022 (defeated) |
| Leesa Vlahos | Labor | Taylor | 20 March 2010 – 17 March 2018 (retired) | |
| 33 | Zoe Bettison | Labor | Ramsay | 11 February 2012 – |
| Susan Close | Labor | Port Adelaide | 11 February 2012 – | |
| 35 | Annabel Digance | Labor | Elder | 15 March 2014 – 17 March 2018 (defeated) |
| Katrine Hildyard | Labor | Reynell | 15 March 2014 – | |
| Dana Wortley | Labor | Torrens | 15 March 2014 – | |
| 38 | Nat Cook | Labor | Fisher Hurtle Vale | 6 December 2014 – 17 March 2018 17 March 2018 – |
| 39 | Paula Luethen | Liberal | King | 17 March 2018 – 19 March 2022 (defeated) |
| Carolyn Power | Liberal | Elder | 17 March 2018 – 19 March 2022 (defeated) | |
| Jayne Stinson | Labor | Badcoe | 17 March 2018 – | |
| 42 | Andrea Michaels | Labor | Enfield | 9 February 2019 – |
| 43 | Sarah Andrews | Labor | Gibson | 19 March 2022 – |
| Nadia Clancy | Labor | Elder | 19 March 2022 – | |
| Lucy Hood | Labor | Adelaide | 19 March 2022 – | |
| Ashton Hurn | Liberal | Schubert | 19 March 2022 – | |
| Catherine Hutchesson | Labor | Waite | 19 March 2022 – | |
| Rhiannon Pearce | Labor | King | 19 March 2022 – | |
| Penny Pratt | Liberal | Frome | 19 March 2022 – | |
| Olivia Savvas | Labor | Newland | 19 March 2022 – | |
| Erin Thompson | Labor | Davenport | 19 March 2022 – |
The premiers and chief ministers of the Australian states and territories are the heads of the executive governments in the six states and two self-governing territories of Australia. They perform the same function at the state and territory level as the Prime Minister of Australia performs at the national level. The King of Australia and the state governors are the formal repositories of executive power; however, in practice they act only on the advice of state premiers and ministers except in extreme circumstances, such as a constitutional crisis.
The Legislative Council, or upper house, is one of the two chambers of the Parliament of South Australia. Its central purpose is to act as a house of review for legislation passed through the lower house, the House of Assembly. It sits in Parliament House in the state capital, Adelaide.
The House of Assembly, or lower house, is one of the two chambers of the Parliament of South Australia. The other is the Legislative Council. It sits in Parliament House in the state capital, Adelaide.
The Parliament of South Australia is the bicameral legislature of the Australian state of South Australia. It consists of the 47-seat House of Assembly and the 22-seat Legislative Council. General elections are held every 4 years, with all of the lower house and half of the upper house filled at each election. It follows a Westminster system of parliamentary government with the executive branch required to both sit in parliament and hold the confidence of the House of Assembly. The parliament is based at Parliament House on North Terrace in the state capital of Adelaide.
Jessie Mary Cooper was elected as a Liberal and Country League representative to the South Australian Legislative Council at the 1959 election. She was one of the first two women elected to the Parliament of South Australia, along with Joyce Steele who was elected to the House of Assembly on the same day. She served until her retirement in 1979.
Joyce Steele was an Australian politician and one of the first two women elected to the Parliament of South Australia, the other being Jessie Cooper. Steele was elected to the House of Assembly and Cooper was elected to the Legislative Council at the 1959 election. Ironically, while South Australian women had been given the right to vote and stand for election—a right they had gained at the 1896 election—South Australia had been the last state to elect a female representative.
There have been 153 women in the Australian House of Representatives since the establishment of the Parliament of Australia. Women have had the right to both vote and sit in parliament since 1902. The first woman to run for the House of Representatives was Selina Anderson at the 1903 election for Dalley, but the first woman elected to the House was Dame Enid Lyons at the 1943 election for Darwin. At that election, the first woman member of the Senate was also elected, and there have been women members of the Senate continuously ever since. By contrast, the House of Representatives has had women members continuously only since 1980.
There have been 121 women in the Australian Senate since the establishment of the Parliament of Australia. Women have had the right to stand for federal parliament since 1902, and there were three female candidates for the Senate at the 1903 federal election. However, it was not until Dorothy Tangney's victory at the 1943 federal election that a woman was elected. Since then, all states and territories have had multiple female senators – in chronological order: Western Australia (1943), Queensland (1947), Victoria (1950), South Australia (1955), Tasmania (1975), the Australian Capital Territory (1975), New South Wales (1987), and the Northern Territory (1998).
Government in Australia is elected by universal suffrage and Australian women participate in all levels of the government of the nation. In 1902, the newly formed Commonwealth of Australia became the first nation on earth to enact equal suffrage, enabling women to both vote and stand for election alongside men Women have been represented in Australian state parliaments since 1921, and in the Federal Parliament since 1943. The first female leader of an Australian State or Territory was elected in 1989, and the first female Prime Minister took office in 2010. In 2019 for the first time, a majority of members of the Australian Senate were women. At the time of its foundation in 1901, and again since 1952, Australia has had a female monarch as ceremonial Head of State, while the first female Governor of an Australian State was appointed in 1991, and the first female Governor-General of Australia took office in 2008.
There have been 81 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.
Colonial elections were held in South Australia on 25 April 1896, excepting the Northern Territory, which voted on 2 May. All 54 seats in the South Australian House of Assembly were up for election. The incumbent liberal government led by Premier of South Australia Charles Kingston in an informal coalition with the United Labor Party (ULP) led by John McPherson defeated the conservative opposition. Each district elected multiple members, with voters casting multiple votes.
There have been 60 women in the New South Wales Legislative Council since its establishment in 1856. Women have had the right to stand as a candidate since 1918; the Council introduced direct election in 1978.
There have been 108 women in the Victorian Legislative Assembly since its establishment in 1856. Women have had the right to vote in Victoria, Australia since 1908 and the right to stand as a candidate for the Victorian Legislative Assembly since 1923.
There have been 60 women in the Victorian Legislative Council since its establishment in 1856. Women have had the right to vote in Victoria, Australia since 1908 and the right to stand as a candidate for the Victorian Legislative Council since 1923. As of September 2020, there were 17 women in the 40 member Legislative Council.
There have been 97 women in the Legislative Assembly of Queensland since its establishment in 1860. Women have had the right to vote in the Assembly since 1905 and the right to stand as candidates since 1915.
There have been 66 women in the Western Australian Legislative Assembly since its establishment in 1890. Women have had the right to vote since 1899 and the right to stand as candidates since 1920.
There have been 54 women in the Western Australian Legislative Council since its creation in 1832. Women have had the right to vote since 1899 and the right to stand as candidates since 1920.
There have been 38 women in the Tasmanian House of Assembly since its establishment in 1856. Women have had the right to vote since 1903 and the right to stand as candidates since 1921.
There have been 24 women in the South Australian Legislative Council since its establishment in 1840. Women have had the right to vote and stand as candidates since 1894.
The Australian Labor Party (Australian Capital Territory Branch), commonly known as ACT Labor, is the ACT branch of the Australian Labor Party. It is one of two major parties in the unicameral Parliament of the Australian Capital Territory.