Women in the Tasmanian Legislative Council


There have been 21 women in the Tasmanian Legislative Council since its establishment in 1825. Women have had the right to vote since 1903 and the right to stand as candidates since 1921.
The first successful female candidate for the Legislative Council was Margaret McIntyre, who was elected as the member for Cornwall in 1948. Like most MLCs, McIntyre was an independent. She died later in 1948 in an air accident, and the next woman elected to the Council was Labor's Lucy Grounds in 1951. Another Labor woman, Phyllis Benjamin, joined Grounds in 1952; Grounds retired in 1958 and Benjamin in 1976, in which year Kath Venn was elected to the Council. After Venn's departure in 1982 there were no women in the Council until 1992, when Jean Moore was elected. She departed in 1994, and since the election of Silvia Smith and Sue Smith to the Council in 1997 women have been represented continuously. In 2009, Vanessa Goodwin became the first Liberal woman elected to the Council.

List of women in the Tasmanian Legislative Council

Names in bold indicate women who have been appointed as Ministers and Parliamentary Secretaries during their time in Parliament. Names in italics indicate entry into Parliament through a by-election or by appointment.

Timeline


ImageSize = width:1000 height:auto barincrement:12
PlotArea = top:10 bottom:80 right:120 left:20
AlignBars = early
DateFormat = yyyy
Period = from:1945 till:2025
TimeAxis = orientation:horizontal
ScaleMajor = unit:year increment:5 start:1945
Colors =
id:AL value:red legend: Australian Labor Party
id:LP value:blue legend: Liberal Party of Australia
id:ID value:gray legend: Independent
Legend = columns:3 left:150 top:50 columnwidth:200
BarData =
barset:MLCs
PlotData=
width:5 align:left fontsize:S shift: anchor:till
barset:MLCs
from:1948 till:1948 color:ID text:"Margaret McIntyre "
from:1951 till:1958 color:AL text:"Lucy Grounds "
from:1952 till:1976 color:AL text:"Phyllis Benjamin "
from:1976 till:1982 color:AL text:"Kath Venn "
from:1992 till:1994 color:ID text:"Jean Moore "
from:1997 till:2003 color:ID text:"Silvia Smith "
from:1997 till:2013 color:ID text:"Sue Smith "
from:1999 till:2011 color:AL text:"Lin Thorp "
from:1999 till:2001 color:ID text:"Cathy Edwards "
from:2001 till:2009 color:AL text:"Allison Ritchie "
from:2003 till:2009 color:ID text:"Norma Jamieson "
from:2004 till:2019 color:ID text:"Tania Rattray "
from:2005 till:2019 color:ID text:"Ruth Forrest "
from:2009 till:2017 color:LP text:"Vanessa Goodwin "
from:2010 till:2016 color:ID text:"Adriana Taylor "
from:2011 till:2019 color:ID text:"Rosemary Armitage "
from:2013 till:2019 color:LP text:"Leonie Hiscutt "
from:2017 till:2019 color:AL text:"Sarah Lovell "
from:2017 till:2019 color:AL text:"Jo Siejka "
from:2018 till:2019 color:LP text:"Jane Howlett "
from:2019 till:2019 color:ID text:"Meg Webb "
barset:skip