Anne McEwen (SA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

On 13 June 2010 I attended the premiere of a performance called Why Muriel Matters, a sell-out cabaret show held at the Adelaide Town Hall. Tonight I would like to pay tribute to Muriel Matters and reflect on why she matters, and also pay tribute to the group of people who have worked hard to bring her story to life on the stage.

Muriel Matters was a suffragist, a fighter and a creative campaigner who devoted her life to pursuing rights for women. She was born in Bowden, Adelaide on 12 November 1877 and was one of nine children. South Australia, of course, has a proud history of progressive politics. We were the first self-governing territory in the world to allow women the right to vote and stand for election as a member for parliament on the same terms as a man. That monumental achievement occurred in 1894.

Muriel Matters studied music at the University of Adelaide and became an elocution teacher, but she loved performing best of all and it was as an actress and recitalist that she made a name in Adelaide, in Sydney and in Perth. She was influenced in her political views by writers such as Walt Whitman and Henrik Ibsen.

By 1904, Matters had moved to Perth. Encouraged by her acting success, she took advice and moved to London in 1905. She struggled there to establish herself as an actress and recitalist, so she occasionally worked as a journalist. As well as struggling financially, Muriel also struggled with the very obvious divide in the United Kingdom between the enormously wealthy people in London and the very poor people living in the same city. It was a division that she had not seen in Adelaide. The fact that women in Britain did not have the right to vote surprised Muriel very much as well. She became an activist in the suffrage movement.

After making contact with both the National Union of Women’s Suffrage Societies and the more radical Women’s Social and Political Union, she decided to join another suffrage group, the Women’s Freedom League. This group suited Muriel best. She liked them because they were militant but not violent. Her acting skills made her a natural orator, and she took to the road to advocate for votes for women. The Women’s Freedom League had a horse-drawn caravan that toured regional England and Wales. It was decorated with banners saying ‘Votes for Women’. Muriel and her comrade Violet Tillard travelled for months handing out pamphlets in rural and regional England. Muriel was a great organiser. By 1908 the Women’s Freedom League had grown from 29 branches to 53 branches. She had many unusual organising techniques.

On 28 October 1908 Muriel Matters became the first woman to speak in the House of Commons. She did this by entering the House with some supporters and with some chains and padlocks secreted beneath her garments. She went to the ladies gallery and there she proceeded to chain herself to the grill. The grill was in place to hide the ladies in the ladies gallery from the view of the gentlemen members of parliament below on the floor of the House of Commons. While her male supporters showered the floor below with pamphlets, Muriel, chained to the grill, loudly proclaimed, ‘votes for women, votes for women’. She continued to call ‘votes for women’ until she was removed, still padlocked to the grill, which also had to be removed. For that transgression she served a month’s imprisonment in the terrible Holloway jail. That led to a lifetime interest in improving the lot of prisoners. It did not stop Muriel’s activities.

On 16 February 1909, parliament was due to resume sitting. King Edward would be making the procession to open parliament. The suffragists decided this was an ideal time to bring more attention to their cause and to do this they hired a dirigible, an 80-foot long hot-air balloon. It was piloted by the very brave Mr Herbert Spencer and it carried Muriel and 56 pounds of pamphlets. The dirigible took off and the idea was to distribute the pamphlets along the procession that King Edward was leading. Unfortunately, the dirigible was blown slightly off course and Mr Herbert Spencer had to climb out onto the apparatus of the dirigible to try to get it back on course. That was not particularly successful. Nevertheless, they did distribute most of the 56 pounds of pamphlets. But the ultimate success was that this established Muriel as an activist, a campaigner and a suffragist without peer.

In 1910 Muriel returned to Australia. On 13 June she lectured at the Adelaide Town Hall about her experiences, particularly about her prison experiences. She was billed at that public engagement as ‘that daring Australian girl’. She was famous in two hemispheres, according to the flyer for the event, and famous for her illuminating lecture, ‘The women’s war’. Muriel also toured other states and advocated for equal pay for equal work, for restoring the rights of women in the situation of marriage breakdown, for prison reform and of course for universal suffrage in Great Britain.

The efforts of Muriel Matters and the other suffragists paid off. On 2 July 1928 British women finally obtained suffrage on the same terms as men. Muriel Matters returned to England and continued her life pursuing equality for women. She married a dentist in 1914. She contested the seat of Hastings at a British general election at about the same time. She finally died at the age of 92 in 1969 in London.

The story of Muriel Matters was not well known in my home town and her home town of Adelaide. It took the efforts of a group of very determined women and men in Adelaide to secure her the recognition she deserved. I would like to pay tribute to the Muriel Matters Society and especially to state Labor members of parliament Steph Key and Frances Bedford, who have worked tirelessly to get the funding and commitment necessary to bring about the cabaret production of Muriel’s life.

At the performance on 13 June 2010, which was of course exactly 100 years after Muriel’s public lecture at the same venue, we were reminded of the long history of the campaign for votes for women and also reminded how important it is to exercise those votes and to never take it for granted. I can only imagine how impressed Muriel would be to learn that, in Australia now, we have the government’s paid parental leave scheme. Such a thing could only be imagined in the early 1900s, when Muriel was campaigning for rights for women. I am sure she would be pleased about paid parental leave. I think, however, she would possibly be very disappointed that in Australia we have still not secured equal pay for equal work. Those of us who continue to campaign for that can look to Muriel for inspiration. We will look to her for inspiration. I am not sure if we are going to take to the dirigible, but that is always an option, I suppose!

John Hogg (President) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I understand that Senator Crossin is seeking leave to speak for 20 minutes.

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