WEL: Women's Electoral Lobby takes Adelaide baton for political activity from Women's League of Voters in 1979

Deborah McCulloch, an original Women's Electoral Lobby member in South Australia, became the state's first government women's adviser, succeeded in 1979 by Rosemary Wighton (right), with the government's women's unit secretary Pat Barr at left.
Image courtesy Deborah McCulloch

A generational change in South Australian women’s political activity was made official in 1979 when the League of Women Voters (the successor from 1939 of the Women’s Non Party Political Association formed in 1909 by Lucy Morice and Catherine Helen Spence) handed over its functions to the state’s branch of the Women’s Electoral Lobby, started in 1972.

The valedictory address for the League of Women’s Voters was given by Ellinor Walker who has been at the heart of its and the Women’s Non Party Political Association’s activities for 65 years. Walker continuing to work for women’s affairs, helping a successful campaign for the state government to reactivate the Catherine Helen Spence memorial scholarship.

The Women’s Electoral Lobby (WEL), also non-party political lobby group, was formed soon after a Melbourne group in Adelaide in 1972. One of the original Adelaide WEL members was Deborah McCulloch, an English teacher and later a lecturer at Salisbury College of Advanced Education. She’d been involved in the women's movement from 1971 was appointed the first women’s adviser to South Australian premier Don Dunstan in 1976. Other high-profile figures among the WEL Membership, that peaked at 1000, included Mary Beasley, Carol Treloar, Joan Russell, Jackie Cook and politicians Janine Haines (Australian Democrats), and Jennifer Cashmore (Liberal). Betty Fisher, former member of the Communist Party of Australia, was another energetic WEL force.

WEL has played a leading role in South Australia in campaigning for social services and legislative reforms on behalf of women. Members questioned candidates for the federal election on their attitudes towards issues such as contraception, children’s day care, equal pay and the status of women.  

WEL also made submissions on  issues, including sexism in education, the media and the workplace, the age of consent, use of school rooms outside school hours, the needs of women on welfare (particularly Aboriginal women), teaching of English to migrant women, divorce and abortion law reform, rape within marriage, prostitution and women’s shelters.