Kay Brownbill (House of Representatives) and Isobel Redmond (party leader) add to South Australian female firsts

Kay Brownbill and Isabel Redmond created two female firsts as South Australian Liberal MPs.
Images courtesy State Library of South Australia and South Australian Parliament House

Liberals Kay Brownbill (federal House of Representatives member for Kingston in 1966) and Isobel Redmond (state Opposition leader in 2009) set more South Australian political female firsts.

Adelaide-born in 1914, Brownbill was child actress "Kitty Brownbill” and young writer "Cathrine Brownbill", whose radio plays were aired on the ABC (Australian Broadcasting Commission/Corporation) and internationally. Her Sleep to Wake, about William Light, was performed in the state’s 1938 centenary. Brownbill worked at radio 2WG in Wagga Wagga before returning to Adelaide in 1939 for eight years as 5DN and 5RM’s  “social editress”.

She went to Sydney as a 2GB executive before study at a television school in England in 1949.  She moved to public relations back in Adelaide and was active in the Liberal and Country League. She won the seat of Kingston at her second attempt in 1966; the third woman in the House of Representatives, after Enid Lyons and Doris Blackburn (both widows of previous members).

Brownbill lost her seat to Labor’s Richard Gun in1969. Elizabeth Harvey was the next South Australian woman elected to the House of Representatives in 1987.

Isobel Redmond was member for Adelaide Hills state seat of Heysen in the House of Assembly from 2002 and became the first female leader of a state major party as Opposition leader between 2009 and 2013.

Redmond, aligned with the conservative Evans family faction, had become deputy leader on July 4 2009 after leader Martin Hamilton-Smith called a leadership spill vote. Hamilton-Smith retained the leadership, with Redmond replacing Vickie Chapman as deputy leader. Hamilton-Smith called a second leadership spill after a close 11–10 vote and a few days later didn’t nominate for leadership. On July 8 2009, Redmond was elected leader against Chapman by 13–9 votes.  

Under Redmond, the Liberals won 18 of 47 House of Assembly seats in the 2010, a gain of three from 2006 but still underperforming in the metropolitan area. Redmond was involved in several controversies, including the dodgy document affair, and, with falling poll ratings, she resigned as leader of the Liberal Party in 2013