Women’s suffrage in South Australia

On 18 December 1894 the South Australian Parliament passed the Constitutional Amendment (Adult Suffrage) Act giving women the right to vote and to stand for parliament. Queen Victoria signed the legislation on 21 March 1895.

This meant that South Australia was the first place in the world to give equal political rights to both women and men.

Catherine Helen Spence (The State Library of South Australia has a named Spence Wing in her honour) was a candidate for the Federal Convention election of 1897. She failed to gain sufficient votes to become a delegate, but in standing for election she became Australia’s first female political candidate, and the first woman in the world to stand to for political office.

Each of Australia’s colonies had its own electoral laws and so the franchise differed between colonies. From 18 December 1894, adult women as well as men had the right to vote in South Australia. The Woman's Christian Temperance Union had been influential in securing the vote for South Australian women. Other colonies were not convinced that universal suffrage was desirable, and cartoonists lampooned the W.C.T.U. and female voters. In 1902 Australian women gained the right to vote in Commonwealth elections.