Motions

Women's Suffrage Anniversary

The Hon. R.B. MARTIN (15:51): I move:

That this council—

1. Acknowledges that in 2024 we mark 130 years since the passage of the Constitutional Amendment (Adult Suffrage) Act 1894 through both houses of the South Australian parliament, which saw South Australia become one of the earliest jurisdictions in the world to grant women the right to vote;

2. Recognises the crucial importance of access to full democratic participation for all citizens to the achievement of a fair, equitable and successful society; and

3. Reaffirms our commitment to upholding South Australia’s long and proud tradition of national and global leadership in progressive democratic and social reforms.

This motion acknowledges that 2024 marks the 130^th anniversary of women's suffrage in our state. The Constitutional Amendment (Adult Suffrage) Bill of 1894 was passed by the Legislative Council on 23 August 1894 and by the House of Assembly on 18 December 1894. This trailblazing reform saw South Australia become the first colony in Australia to extend this right to women. Our franchise was the most generous in the world at the time in that all adult women gained the right to vote without restriction by age or marital status.

The passage of the bill also made us, quite notably, the first jurisdiction in the world in which women were able to stand as candidates in state elections. So for neither the first time nor the last, South Australia led the world in our appetite for progressive reform. How women's suffrage got across the line is a story worth revisiting on an anniversary such as this one.

The conversation around women's suffrage, not only in South Australia but in many other parts of the world, began decades earlier. The needle moved in earnest here in 1861, when women who owned property and paid council rates gained the right to vote in council elections. But then progress stagnated. Women's suffrage was the subject of seven separate unsuccessful bills in the South Australian parliament between 1885 and 1894. During the near-decade of intervening time, the tide of public and parliamentary opinion was slowly turned by an exhaustive campaign effort.

Right across the colony, public meetings were held, lectures given, letters to the newspaper written and petitions circulated. Driving much of this activity was the Women's Suffrage League of South Australia, supported significantly by the Women's Christian Temperance Union; the trade union movement, in particular the Working Women's Trade Union; and the nascent United Labor Party.

The Women's Suffrage League had been formed in 1888 by a group that was helmed by the prominent suffragettes Mary Lee and Mary Colton. While the founding of the Women's Suffrage League is credited principally to these two women, there were many more people, including Catherine Helen Spence and other notable suffragettes, a few members of parliament and a number of religious leaders, who supported the league both in its establishment and in its activities.

The extensive work undertaken by the Women's Suffrage League and its allies to win hearts and minds over the years that followed its formation extended across every corner of the colony, including the Northern Territory. On 23 August 1894, their campaign culminated with the presentation of a petition in favour of women's suffrage to the South Australian House of Assembly. The petition was signed by some 11,600 men and women. The Women's Suffrage League had worked for years to put together what was at the time the largest petition ever presented to the parliament.

The ensuing debate in the two houses focused significantly on whether it was necessary or desirable for women to have the vote and whether women possessed the appropriate qualifications to competently exercise the right to vote. All was questioned, from their inherent temperament and suitability to be given the vote, to what damage their enfranchisement may present to their household as an institution, to whether in fact women possessed any interest in public affairs or a sufficient knowledge thereof to enable them to exercise informed participation.

To read the record of debate is confronting. Some of the arguments put forward by opponents of the bill in both houses are galling. Among those arguments was the idea that having the vote would corrupt women's gentle nature and even 'make them masculine'. One member suggested that a woman's proper role was in the household to 'adorn and assist her husband'. Another member even suggested that women did not need the right to vote because they were already skilled at manipulating their husbands into voting in accordance with their wishes.

The modern observer might well conclude that the single uniting principle underlying each of these arguments could have been nothing other than bare misogyny. Proponents of the bill recognised that autonomy and political empowerment are crucial to the delivery of justice and that the subordination of one group to another in decision-making is incompatible with this. Those who did not support women's suffrage, it was noted, ultimately could only decline to do so on the basis that women are inherently lesser, and indeed that seemed to be the barely concealed undercurrent in the contributions of some opponents who spoke against the bill.

One of the great anecdotes of this council's political history can be found in the fact that the bill's supporters in the Legislative Council were able to take advantage of the bigotry of some members opposed to deliver reform that went beyond what even its strongest advocates had anticipated. Various amendments to the bill were proposed during the debate, including but not limited to restricting women from voting in the House of Assembly and restricting the vote to women aged over 25. All the proposed amendments were defeated, until the final amendment.

The intent of the bill was only to extend the same voting rights to women that applied to men, not even the Women's Suffrage League had called for the right of women to stand for election. The bill, as introduced to the Legislative Council, therefore included clause 4, which proposed that women not be entitled to sit in parliament. An especially outspoken opponent of women's suffrage in the Legislative Council was a notoriously combative member called Ebenezer Ward. He decided to try to thwart the bill by moving an amendment to strike out clause 4, which would mean the bill gave women the right to stand for election.

Ward assumed that this would seem such an outlandish proposition, even to the bill's proponents, that it would be voted down. As the council divided on the striking out of clause 4, fellow opponents of the bill followed Ward's lead and voted to eliminate it. But Ward had miscalculated. Most of the bill's supporters also voted to strike out the clause.

The Hansard did not record Ward's reaction when, shortly thereafter, the bill passed, with clause 4 struck out at his instigation. Perhaps he still hoped the bill would collapse in the House of Assembly, but it did not. Their final vote was 31 for, 14 against. Ebenezer Ward thus became publicly known for facilitating the most generous political enfranchisement arrangements in the world for South Australian women. The enduring renown of his legacy is such that, in his Wikipedia article today, the personal details section reads: occupation, journalist; known for, accidently giving women the right to stand for parliament.

On the day of the bill's passage through the House of Assembly on 18 December 1894, a simple and elegant justification for women's suffrage was delivered by Frank Hourigan, a union leader and United Labor Party member for West Torrens, and he said:

This bill has been supported by many honourable members on the ground that women are mentally equal to men; but I vote for it principally on the grounds of common justice. Women with men are held equally responsible for the due observance of the law, and therefore they should have an equal voice in making the laws they are called upon to obey.

Universal suffrage is the only means by which a true, just and equitable democracy can be undertaken. Today, very few in our community would question the moral and logical justifications for universal suffrage, but of course earlier in our history many people thought differently. The success of the Constitutional Amendment (Adult Suffrage) Bill and the enshrinement in our laws of women's right to vote was the powerful culmination of many years of tireless activism and advocacy by a great many South Australians, women and men.

We in modern South Australia would do well to remember that many of today's foregone conclusions were yesterday's hard-won political victories. I say this to remind those of us who play a part in the great project of steering our society forward towards a more fair and equitable future that being on the side of what is right and just does not guarantee the political winds will blow in our favour. To succeed requires that we strive and advocate consistently for change and that we make our case effectively to our communities to bring them with us on the journey.

South Australia has marked many proud achievements as a national and global leader in democratic and social reforms that have inspired the world to follow. It is woven into the fabric of our identity as a state. For those of us whose aim is to drive and progress such reforms, our resolve should never waver. The strength of our commitment to the values we share and our determination to continue realising the aims that embody them must incite us to keep moving forward, crucially always together as equals. I am proud to commend the motion and I call upon all members of the chamber to support the recognition of this worthy and important anniversary.

Debate adjourned on motion of Hon. B.R. Hood.