Voting Rights For Australian Women and Aboriginal People

New Zealand was the first self-governing country to give women the right to vote on 19 September 1893.

On 18 December 1894, South Australia became, the second place in the world, after New Zealand, to give women the vote.

In 1897, Catherine Helen Spence became Australia's first female political candidate when she stood (unsuccessfully) for the Federal Convention held in Adelaide.

Portrait of Catherine Helen Spence in the 1890s

Under the Municipal Corporations Act of 1861, South Australia's female ratepayers, were already enfranchised. Some women had been voting in municipal elections for more than 20 years.

Interestingly, the female descendants of the Bounty mutineers who lived on Pitcairn Islands could vote from 1838.
 

In 1856, 52 years before women's suffrage was achieved in Victoria, Fanny Finch and another unnamed woman, used their status as ratepayers to vote during municipal elections. 

Fanny Finch had been born in London, possibly to free people of African racial heritage, and was raised in a foundling hospital. She arrived in the colony of South Australia in 1837 and later became a businesswoman.

Frances Finch was born Frances Combe in London in 1815.

In the 1850s, the constitutions of Victoria, New South Wales and South Australia gave Aboriginal men the same right to vote as other male British subjects aged over 21.

In other states, laws to deny the vote to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people were enacted by Queensland (1885), Western Australia (1893) and the Northern Territory (1922).

Tasmania granted Aboriginal men the right to vote in 1896.

The Commonwealth Parliament of Australia, passed the uniform Commonwealth Franchise Act 1902, which enabled women 21 years of age and older to vote at elections for the federal Parliament. Aboriginal women who already had the right to vote, could continue to do so.

A report delivered in 1961 found that many Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people had been denied the vote due tof discriminatory legislation in the Northern Territory, Western Australia and Queensland.

The Commonwealth Electoral Act 1962 granted all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people the option to enrol and vote in federal elections.

The Aboriginal Tent Embassy began with a beach umbrella on 26 January 1972, a symbol of Aboriginal protest.

First day of the Aboriginal Tent Embassy, outside Parliament House, Canberra, 27 January 1972. Left to right: Billy Craigie, Bert Williams, Michael Anderson and Tony Coorey. PD

King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia only granted women the right to vote in 2011.