Jane Hume (Victoria, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I, too, would like to take note of the ministerial statement. It is an extraordinary honour indeed to once again stand in this chamber and reflect on one of the most momentous events in the political history of our nation. It was indeed 75 years ago today that Dame Enid Lyons, the member for the Tasmanian electorate of Darwin, was elected to this parliament, along with Western Australian Dame Dorothy Tangney—though at that stage she was not Dame but Mrs Tangney—who was elected to the Senate.

It is Dame Enid Lyons I would like to reflect on. I think I can safely say that I am the southern-most female Liberal senator. It's a terrible shame, and I look to my colleagues in the rows ahead of me in this chamber to say that, yes, they have a responsibility to fix that so that perhaps before we get to the 76th anniversary of Dame Enid Lyons's entry to parliament we can have a female Tasmanian senator from our great party reflecting on this momentous occasion.

I would like to devote some attention specifically to Dame Enid and the triumphs and challenges that characterised her place in history. Of course, while she is best known as Australia's first female parliamentarian, she certainly wasn't new to the demands of political life. Dame Enid grew up in Tasmania to parents who were Methodist. Her father worked in timber mills—if memory serves correctly—and her mother, sadly, was a member of the Labor Party. She was a political activist and she brought—