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The Queensland Centenary of Women's enfranchisement

By John McCulloch - posted Tuesday, 8 February 2005


The Women’s Christian Temperance Union (WCTU) had established a branch in Brisbane in 1885 and took up the suffrage cause in 1891. The WCTU also lobbied the federal government in support of the federal franchise.

The WCTU’s decision to pursue the women’s vote was no doubt influenced by the fact that it sought the repeal of harsh legislation such as the Contagious Diseases Act of 1868 which specified that women, but not men, could be forcibly examined for sexually transmitted diseases and then incarcerated in hospitals if they were infected. Also the Criminal Law Amendment Act of 1891 which maintained the age of consent at 12.

Emma Miller was active in various political organisations, including the Workers’ Political Organisation, of which she was a foundation member and later a life member. It was the forerunner of the Labor Party. She was also president of the next suffrage organisation, the Women’s Equal Franchise Association (WEFA), formed in 1894.

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So by 1894 there were three women’s pressure groups campaigning for the enfranchisement of women in Queensland, and all were expanding throughout the state. They used the tried and true campaigning methods of public meetings, demonstrations, protests, resolutions, relentless leafleting of MPs, and petitions to parliament. They seem to have worked reasonably well with one another from the time when the abolition of the plural vote was promised in 1899, until just prior to the December 1903 federal election when two new suffrage groups were formed.

The first of these was the Queensland Women’s Electoral League (QWEL) and the other group was the Women Workers’ Political Organisation (WWPO) which had been formed by Emma Miller and the other women from WEFA. They campaigned through the unions and Labor organisations on a platform of equal pay for equal work, the nationalisation of monopolies, and equal marriage and divorce laws.

All these organisations could take heart from events in Australia and overseas. New Zealand became the first country in the world to enfranchise women in 1893, although they were not given the right to stand for parliament at the same time. Then with the formation of the Commonwealth of Australia, all persons (including Aborigines) allowed to vote for the lower house of their state at that time received the federal franchise with the passing of the Australian Commonwealth Act of 1900. This meant that women in South Australia and Western Australia were able to vote in the first federal election which was held on March 29 and 30, 1901.

However, Queensland women had to wait until the Commonwealth Franchise Act of 1902 extended this to include women in the rest of Australia. Queensland women voted for the first time in the second federal election on 16 December 1903. Thus Australia became the second country in the world to enfranchise women, and the first to allow them to stand for parliament.

The idea of women’s suffrage was first put before the Queensland Parliament in 1870 by Premier Charles Lilley during a debate on electoral reform. He lost office the same year but remained a staunch supporter of the enfranchisement of women. In 1892 William Taylor made the suggestion, but did not move a motion, that propertied women should be added to the electoral roll. The first serious attempt at reform was made by Richard Hyne with a private member’s Bill on 29 July 1890. This Bill was quite clear and unencumbered, and gave women the vote under the same conditions as men. Hyne pointed out that it was a matter of justice: they paid taxes without representation, and they had to obey laws they had no say in formulating. Although the bill was shelved and no vote was taken, the issue had been given an airing.

The other attempts followed in 1894 including the Powers Bill which was encumbered by including the abolition of plural voting, and the Glassey Bill by including all itinerant workers. Plural voting was very dear to the non-Labor side of politics as it was one of the bases of its power, and the proposals in the Glassey Bill for enfranchising itinerants were clearly unworkable. Inevitably both bills failed to gain enough support in the Legislative Assembly.

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During the premiership of Robert Philp (1899-1901) a Government Bill came before the house that will probably go down in history as one of the silliest pieces of legislation ever placed before an Australian parliament. It included one-adult-one-vote and enfranchised the police force, but the Bill also prescribed that men would in fact get two votes if they had two or more children who were born in “lawful wedlock” and in Queensland. The local press, and even the overseas press, had a field day with the so-called “baby vote”.

The Rockhampton Bulletin reported:

Notwithstanding all the silly things the present government have done we do not like to think they seriously anticipate placing such a farcical law on the statute book … As we have said, the principle of the measure is rotten, the details are a burlesque, and it is an elaborate legislative joke.

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About the Author

John McCulloch AO is the convenor of the Homelessness Taskforce 99. He is a part-time researcher for St Vincent de Paul and a tutor in the School of Management at QUT.

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100th Anniversary of Queensland Women's Right to Vote
Centenary of Queensland Women's suffrage
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