ABSTRACT
Australian women won the vote a year after the establishment of the nation-state in 1901, when six British colonies joined together in a federation to form the Commonwealth of Australia. Social policy was formulated in Australia in a context of self-conscious nation building. Developments in Australia were also, however, part of a broader international picture. The keystone of the national policy or defense and development, then, was a large increase in the white population. "Labor women had some success in achieving the introduction of child endowment, paid directly to mothers. A minimal means-tested child endowment was introduced by the New South Wales state government in 1927 and a larger scheme by a Liberal federal government in 1941. Feminists working within and outside the Labor party attempted to win independence for women by casting mothers as citizens performing a service for the state; patriarchal political economy insisted on positioning mothers as wives, the dependents of men.
