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Talk:1977 Australian federal election

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Between December 1975 and October 1980, when Joan Child, Elaine Darling and Ros Kelly were elected (re-elected in Child's case), there were no women members of the House of Reps. Women have been elected at every election from 1980 onwards, and it is unthinkable this would ever change. The 1977 outcome for women was much commented on in the media and amongst feminist groups, and it provided a spur to the Affirmative action campaign in Australia. I believe that the fact that 1977 was the latest (and likely to be the last ever) general election at which no women members were elected to the House of Reps is highly significant, and worth noting in the article. I've re-edited the article accordingly. -- JackofOz 04:19, 24 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Any idea which media? (Not disagreeing with you but I think sources would actually be positive as people could go and read more about it) None of the news search engines goes back to 1977 (best ones go back to 1996), but I'd be prepared to look in about 2 weeks if I knew where to look. Orderinchaos 09:39, 24 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry, can't help. I did do a thorough search before I made the edit, but nothing came up. I was expecting to see something relevant as a link to the Affirmative Action article, but there's no mention of Australia in the article at all, very surprisingly. -- JackofOz 09:50, 24 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah most stuff in Australia is offline in libraries :( I've been hunting down stuff (reasonably successfully) for WA political history articles. Orderinchaos 10:14, 24 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

How does this relate to the election? Did it have a bearing on the campaign/result or was it just coincidental timing?

The election coincided with the retirement of the Governor-General, Sir John Kerr. Kerr had appeared drunk at the Melbourne Cup in November and the public outcry resulted in the cancellation of his appointment as Ambassador to UNESCO.

--Merbabu (talk) 23:09, 29 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Didn't he retire in 1978, a year after the election? Orderinchaos 04:42, 30 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

No. If you click the link to his article, you'll see he left office on 8 December 1977, and Zelman Cowen was sworn in the same day, 2 days before the election. -- JackofOz (talk) 07:39, 30 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Oh OK. No worries then. (Dunno why I remembered it as being 1978. :/) Orderinchaos 10:46, 30 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]