ABSTRACT
Socially, Australia has been one of the most urbanised and suburbanised industrial nations. Women’s organisations continued to exist but lacked a single common objective and a shared ideology. Their involvement was limited to two main types of issues, specifically legal matters and social welfare problems. Those efforts to agitate on issues directly relevant to women such as marriage and custody laws, maternal and child health and conditions of female employment have been designated as community or voluntary involvement around welfare reform rather than as politics. Australian women have been designated the doormats of the western world, confined and constrained by a male-dominated mateship ethos. Women have fared slightly better in the Territories where two women were on the House of Assembly of the Australian Capital Territory and two on the Northern Territory Legislative Assembly. It might be expected that women would have a greater role to play in local government.
