Catherine Helen Spence 1825 - 1910
First Woman in Australia to seek a Political Appointment
Federation Convention Candidature 1897
The Women's Land Reform League in South Australia
first to adopt Effective Voting 1896
In January 1897, Catherine Helen Spence and Mrs. Jeanne Young, Secretary of the league, held their first large public meeting at which a resolution was passed protesting against the use of the block vote for the Federal Convention elections.
I maintained that the fundamental necessity of a democratic Constitution such as we hoped would evolve from the combined efforts of the ablest men in the Australian States was a just system of representation; and it was as the advocate of effective voting that I took my stand.
...In framing a new constitution the opportunity arose for laying the foundation of just representation, and, had I been elected, my first and last thought would have been given to the claims of the whole people to electoral justice. But the 7,500 votes which I received left me far enough from the lucky 10. Had Mr. Kingston not asserted both publicly and privately that, if elected, I could not constitutionally take my seat, I might have done better.
...I had not expected to be elected, but I did expect that my candidature would help effective voting, and I am sure it did. Later, the league arranged a deputation to Mr. Kingston, to beg him to use his influence for the adoption of the principle in time for the first Federal elections. We foresaw, and prophesied what has actually occurred--the monopoly of representation by one party in the Senate, and the consequent disfranchisement of hundreds of thousands of voters throughout the Commonwealth. But, as before, Mr. Kingston declined to see the writing on the wall.
Catherine Helen Spence: An Autobiography p.80-81
To return to Homepage - click Catherine Helen Spence