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House of Assembly - Fifty-Fourth Parliament, Second Session (54-2)
2021-10-13 Daily Xml
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Muriel Matters Awards

Ms BEDFORD (Florey) (16:01): I put on record my appreciation to both the former Speaker, the member for Heysen, and the Minister for Education, for the establishment of the Muriel Matters Awards. 2021 is the inaugural year of the Muriel Matters Awards, a program for schools with secondary enrolments developed to acknowledge the trailblazing work and life of Muriel Matters, the South Australian-born suffragist, educator and social reformer.

The awards provide the opportunity for young South Australians to be recognised for their contribution through the use of democratic processes to take some form of action in their school and/or the broader community. The awards are to be conducted annually for the Department for Education, Catholic Education and Independent Schools and managed by the Department for Education.

Schools are able to nominate a student from years 7 to 12 to receive a Muriel Matters award. All students—that is, boys as well as girls—are eligible to be nominated. A student cannot be awarded the Muriel Matters Award, though, more than once. The selection of the awardees is a school-based process, using the following criteria. The nominated awardee:

is self starting and shows initiative beyond school-arranged activities;

is involved in democratic processes to promote change and make a difference;

has taken action of some type; and

has exhibited in their actions a degree of selflessness and personal challenge.

These qualities and actions are embodied in the following selection criteria statement:

The Muriel Matters Awards recipient is a student exhibiting self-initiative in promoting democratic discussion and activity in the community.

Awardees will receive an engraved Muriel Matters Award medallion and a copy of Muriel Matters—That Daring Australian Girl by Dr Collette Snowden. The medallions have been funded by the House of Assembly and the books have been donated by the Muriel Matters Society. Schools are invited to submit their award nominations online and, if required, there is also a paper-based nomination form. Upon receiving the school nominations, the Curriculum Programs Directorate of the Department for Education will arrange the engraving and distribution of the medallions and books to schools during November 2021. Nominations are to be received no later than Friday 5 November.

I would also like to mention a woman called Ada Lovelace and thank the National Council of Women for contacting me about her remarkable story. Born in 1815, Ada was, according to Wikipedia, an English woman who was a mathematician and writer, chiefly known for her work on Charles Babbage's proposed mechanical general purpose computer, known as the Analytical Engine. She was the first to recognise the machine had applications beyond pure calculation and published the first algorithm intended to be carried out by the machine, making her the first computer programmer.

Between 1842 and 1843, Ada was working on an article by Italian military engineer Luigi Menabrea, supplementing it with an elaborate set of notes containing what many consider to be the first computer program—an algorithm designed to be carried out by a machine. Further, she developed a vision of the capability of computers, examining how individuals and society relate to technology as a collaborative tool. She died in 1827. Her Wikipedia entry goes on much further, and there is a lot more to this woman than meets the eye.

But, as is often the case in history, the women who have been involved in the whole process of invention or discovery are hardly ever mentioned. DNA is one of the cases that we remember, but it is also the case of Howard Lord Florey and his refinement of the penicillin process. His wife, Ethel, worked really hard on the same projects and is barely mentioned in the notes. I will be working with the University of Adelaide next year in one of their breakfast sessions to make sure that Ethel is remembered. I look forward to being part of that event.

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