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House of Assembly - Fifty-First Parliament, Third Session (51-3)
2008-10-28 Daily Xml
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MATTERS, MURIEL

Ms BEDFORD (Florey) (14:25): Will the Premier report on the commemoration of South Australian suffragette Muriel Matters' work in this building today.

The Hon. M.D. RANN (Ramsay—Premier, Minister for Economic Development, Minister for Social Inclusion, Minister for the Arts, Minister for Sustainability and Climate Change) (14:25): At last, a tough question! Today we commemorate the centenary—

Mr Hamilton-Smith interjecting:

The Hon. M.D. RANN: The Leader of the Opposition who thinks that loyalty is something to do with frequent flyer points! 'I'm right behind you, Rob,' he said. 'I'm right behind you,' he said to Iain Evans. As every member of this house would know, today we commemorate the centenary of a landmark event and the life of a remarkable South Australian. Muriel Matters was more than a gifted orator and stage performer and more than an outspoken advocate for the rights of women. She was also a canny political campaigner and a passionate advocate for numerous causes, including prison reform.

It was terrific to be able to attend today's event with the honourable member, Jane Lomax-Smith, Steph Key and others. Lady Downer was there, and others too, to commemorate a truly remarkable South Australian. Muriel Matters is forever remembered for her role in the House of Commons' famous 'grille' incident, which took place 100 years ago today. Muriel Lilah Matters was born in Bowden (in the electorate of the Attorney-General, I guess) on 12 November 1877, the third of 10 children. She studied elocution and music, but it was her interest in literature that formed her political views.

Muriel was inspired by the writings of the American poet and essayist Walt Whitman and Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen—not Albert Camus, I want to remind the Leader of the Opposition. Indeed, it was reading Ibsen's A Doll's House (regarded by some as the first true feminist play) when she was aged 14 that first excited her interest in women's suffrage. Muriel Matters was doubtless also influenced by the political debates of the day. After all, she was aged 16 in 1894 when South Australia became the second international jurisdiction, after New Zealand, to give women the right to vote.

At the same time, our state became the first jurisdiction in the world to allow women to stand for parliament. In her formative years, Muriel Matters lived in Adelaide, Sydney, Melbourne and Perth. As a musician, actor and theatre director she mixed with literary-minded friends, a number of whom were from Europe. Those friends helped reinforce her socialist views, and her political philosophies were strengthened even further when she arrived in Great Britain in 1905; there Muriel Matters was confronted by the stark reality and the glaring inequality of the British class system.

She also found herself at the centre of the emerging struggle for women's political freedom. Within six weeks of landing in London she was attending meetings of the Women's Social and Political Union, and in 1907 she abandoned her acting career and joined the increasingly influential Women's Freedom League. Muriel soon became a prominent suffragette and conducted public lectures at Hyde Park's famous 'Speakers Corner'. In 1908 Muriel Matters took the Women's Freedom League's first propaganda caravan on the road through Surrey, my home county of Kent, and Sussex to spread the suffragette message beyond London.

On 28 October 1908 she guaranteed herself political immortality when she became the first woman to give a speech in Britain's House of Commons. Muriel and her fellow activist Helen Fox (I am not sure whether she is related to the member for Bright) used burglar-proof chains to tether themselves to the brass grille that divided the ladies' gallery from the rest of parliament. The grille was used to make sure that women could not be seen and definitely not be heard by the members of parliament, all of whom were men. After chaining herself to the grille, which she described as 'that offensive barrier', Muriel unfurled her suffragette banner and began shouting suffrage proclamations about votes for women.

In order to remove the protesters, the parliament's security staff were forced to also remove a large section of the grille. It was never ever replaced. Muriel was forced to stand trial and was sentenced to a month's imprisonment at London's Holloway prison. It was her incarceration that sparked in Muriel an interest in prison reform, one that she pursued with characteristic vigour upon her release—and that is an area that I know that I, the Deputy Premier and Muriel Matters have in common.

After her release, Muriel Matters turned her remarkable talents and energies to political campaigning. She worked in Wales and Ireland, and in 1909 she organised and flew in an airship (or a dirigible) from which she flung leaflets over London calling for 'Votes for Women'. The balloon was followed by a motorcade of suffragists brandishing megaphones, who delivered a series of short speeches on the need for women to be enfranchised. It was a brilliantly planned and executed political campaign that was as visionary as it was effective.

In 1910, Muriel Matters returned to Australia, but she continued her work on behalf of women all around the world. She conducted lectures, she denounced the existence of sweatshops and advocated women's unions, equal divorce laws, equal pay for equal work and support for unmarried mothers. She also helped secure a motion from the Australian Senate, which was cabled to then British prime minister Herbert Asquith.

Upon returning to Britain, Muriel Matters remained an activist for women's suffrage and for other social issues. In 1924, with women's suffrage finally granted—decades after it was here in South Australia—she ran for the British parliament in the seat of Hastings, which was an established conservative stronghold—and probably was until Tony Blair's election. She was unsuccessful but continued to live in Hastings on the Sussex coast until her death in 1969 at the age of 92.

Muriel Matters was an inspirational South Australian about whom many South Australians would know very little. She fought for rights that are taken for granted throughout most of the world today. She was a women ahead of her time. She was a determined activist, a visionary campaigner and a great South Australian. I want to say that her influence continues to resonate, her contribution will be forever remembered, and we are proud to honour her memory and her achievements today on this centenary.

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