Jessie Cooper - Entering Parliament

Entering Parliament

In 1895, South Australian women became the first in Australia, and some of the first in the world, to be given the right to vote and stand for election to Parliament. The following year, the first women in Australia voted at the South Australian elections. Ironically, South Australia did not have a female representative until 1959 when Jessie Cooper and Joyce Steele were elected to both Upper and Lower Houses, and it was the last Parliament in Australia to actually have women members.

In 1959, attempts were still being made to prevent women entering Parliament. In an action brought by Frank Chapman and Arthur Cockington, Jessie Cooper and Margaret Scott (the Liberal party and Labor party candidates respectively, running for the Legislative Council in the South Australian election), had to show that they were persons under the Constitution to be eligible to stand. The South Australian Supreme Court found in their favour and Jessie Cooper went on to win a seat in the Legislative Council.

Reporters asked Joyce Steele and Jessie Cooper how they would combine their domestic duties with politics: Steele said that she would have to get a housekeeper to help with the housework, while Cooper replied that "... she would fit in her housework in the same way as a male member fitted in the running of an orchard or an accountant's office." (Sydney Morning Herald, 9 March 1959. p. 1)