Promise and Performance
The Queensland 'Elections Act' 1915 and Women's Right to Stand for Parliament
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.1017/S1321816600004086Keywords:
'Elections Act' 1915, female parliamentary candidates, Irene Longman, Lower HouseAbstract
In a thumbnail sketch of Queensland's first female parliamentarian, Irene Longman, in 1931, the Clerk of Parliament Charles Bernays commented on the novelty of a woman in Queensland's Legislative Assembly. ‘The innovation,’ he averred, ‘takes long to convert itself into a common-place. The public are slow to acquire a habit.’ Bernays' comment was apposite. Although the Elections Act of 1915 enabled non-Indigenous women as well as men to stand as candidates for Queensland's Lower House, no woman took up this opportunity until Longman's successful bid for the seat of Bulimba in 1929. In the 31 Queensland elections held from 1918 to 2004, women were, until very recently, a tiny minority when compared to the thousands of examples of male candidates for the same period.
References
Bernays, Charles, Queensland: Our Seventh Political Decade, 1920–1930 (Sydney, Angus & Robertson, 1931): 338–39.
Aboriginal people had been effectively prevented from participating in elections with the Elections Act of 1874 which denied the franchise to Aborigines who did not own freehold property; the Elections Act of 1885 introduced a blanket exclusion, preventing all Aborigines from voting in Queensland elections, and this exclusion, with slight variations of expression, was repeated in subsequent legislation including the Elections Act 1915. See Margaret Reid, ‘Casteing the vote: Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Voting Rights in Queensland’, Hecate, 30(2) (2004): 71–74 for a discussion of the definitions of ‘Aboriginal native’ under the Electoral Acts, the implications for those Indigenous Queenslanders whom the state defined as ‘half-castes’, and subsequent amendments to further restrict the franchise.
The Local Authorities Acts Amendment Act 1920 and the City of Brisbane Act 1924. Some citizens subsequently lost their right to vote at local government elections under the conservative Moore state government's Local Authorities Acts Amendment Act 1929, which provided for an occupier franchise, and City of Brisbane Act Amendment Act 1930, which provided for an occupier franchise and plural voting; universal suffrage was restored in 1933 by Forgan Smith's state Labor government.
Elections Act 1915 (Qld).
ALP Queensland State Parliamentary Labour Party Caucus Minutes, 9 July 1915, 30 August 1915, 30 September 1915.
Queensland Parliamentary Debates (hereafter QPD), 13 July 1915: 9.
QPD, Legislative Assembly, 23 September 1915: 912–13.
QPD, Legislative Assembly, 23 September 1915: 913.
The quote is from the Tolmie, Hon J., QPD, Legislative Assembly, 28 September 1915: 951.
QPD, Legislative Assembly, 23 September 1915: 914.
QPD, Legislative Council, 13 October 1915: 1263.
QPD, Legislative Assembly, 28 September 1915: 957.
QPD, Legislative Assembly, 28 September 1915: 968–69.
QPD, Legislative Assembly, 28 September 1915: 951.
QPD, Legislative Council, 13 October 1915: 1263.
QPD, Legislative Council, 13 October 1915: 1263.
Sawer, Marian and Simms, Marian, A Woman's Place: Women and Politics in Australia, 2nd edn (Sydney: Allen & Unwin, 1993): 17.
Hughes, Colin A. and Graham, B.D., Voting for the Queensland Legislative Assembly 1890–1964 (Canberra: ANU, 1974); Colin A. Hughes, Voting for the Australian State Lower Houses 1965–1974 (Canberra: ANU, 1981); Colin A. Hughes and Don Aitkin, Voting for the Australian State Lower Houses 1975–1984 (Canberra: ANU, 1987); Janice Williams, ‘Women in Queensland State Politics’, Refractory Girl (Spring 1973): 16; John McCulloch, Women Members of the Queensland Parliament 1929–1994 (Brisbane: Queensland Parliamentary Library, nd).
Queensland Women's Electoral League, Minutes of Executive Committee meeting, 22 November 1934, John Oxley Library OM71.47/12.
Nambour Chronicle, 26 April 1935: 6.
Haines, Janine, Suffrage to Sufferance: 100 Years of Women in Politics (Sydney: Allen & Unwin, 1992): 74.
Sawer and Simms, A Woman's Place: 17.
Magarey, Susan, Passions of the First Wave Feminists (Sydney: University of New South Wales Press, 2001): 159.
Sawer and Simms, A Woman's Place: 47.
van Acker, Elizabeth, Different Voices: Gender and Politics in Australia (Melbourne: Macmillan Education, 1999): 76.
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H.A.T., ‘The First Lady Shire Councillor of Queensland’, Queensland Society Magazine (October 1923): 5.
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The Worker, 20 January 1932: 18.
Queensland Labor Party. Constitution and General Rules. Amended January 1932 (Brisbane: Worker Office): 40. The objects were: ‘To bring more women into the Australian Labor party; to educate Labor Women as to the objective, policy, and work of the Labor Movement; to cooperate with the Australian Labor Party Branch in election campaigns and other Labor organising work, and in the raising of funds for same; to give Labor women the widest opportunity to discuss amongst themselves all questions which particularly affect women and children; to assist in developing the social side of Labor work; to support and advocate the principles and objective of the Australian Labor Party as set out by the Federal and State Conference of the Australian Labor Party; to train and provide women speakers for service in the Australian Labor Party.’
Cited in Fitzgerald, Ross and Thornton, Harold, Labor in Queensland: From the 1880s to 1988 (St Lucia: University of Queensland Press, 1989): 299.
