ABSTRACT
In the lead into Australian federation, democratic suffragists continued to mobilise while also ensuring sympathetic candidates through electioneering. The Act to grant white women a federal vote was passed by the new federal Parliament in 1902, providing powerful impetus at the state level. Before the first federal election women could vote in, the democratic suffragist association went into abeyance. This was so its members could participate in the Working Women’s Political Association formed to educate, agitate, and electioneer. New women’s democratic leagues were spawned across the regions.
The key conservative women’s organisation educating women on the vote, the Queensland Women’s Electoral Lobby, was established in 1903. Temperance Union women helped form franchise leagues across the state. Only after leading Sydney feminist Rose Scott visited and intervened did the electoral leagues begin to advocate for the state vote.
Labour women continued to develop a powerful social network within the labour movement. With key men in the Labor Party, and New Woman journalists and newspapers, notably the Truth, supporting them, after a series of ‘public indignation’ meetings and deputations, they oversaw the successful passing of the state legislation in 1905 with one-woman one-vote with a liberal Labor coalition in power.
