Ivy Wedgwood

Wedgwood joined the Australian Women's National League (AWNL) in the 1920s, and eventually won election to its federal executive.[2] One of her political mentors was Elizabeth Couchman, the organisation's president. In 1944, Wedgwood and Couchman were among those who represented the AWNL at the two conferences which led to the creation of the Liberal Party of Australia.[4] The league eventually resolved to merge into the new party, but only after securing a number of concessions towards female representation. In Victoria, half of the positions in the party's organisational wing were reserved for women.[5] Wedgwood became a prominent figure in the early years of the Victorian Liberal Party, initially as a member of various committees and later as a party vice-president and head of its women's section. She also represented Victoria on the Federal Executive and as a delegate to the Federal Council.[2]

Wedgwood was elected to the Senate at the 1949 federal election. She was one of ten female candidates, but only she and Agnes Robertson of Western Australia were successful. Their election brought the total number of women in the Senate to four (out of 60), the others being Dorothy Tangney and Annabelle Rankin.[6] Wedgwood's first term began on 22 February 1950. She was re-elected in 1951, 1953, 1958, and 1964.[2] Wedgwood was the first woman to represent Victoria in the Senate and remains Victoria's longest-serving female parliamentarian; only six other women have served in the Senate for more than 20 years.[7]

In the Senate, Wedgwood was a prominent advocate for women's interests.[2] According to her successor, Margaret Guilfoyle, she "felt that she was there to represent their values and their views".[8] Wedgwood and her colleagues successfully lobbied for the removal of the marriage bar in the Commonwealth Public Service,[2] and she was a driving force behind the creation of the women's bureau in the Department of Labour and National Service, which monitored trends in women's employment.[9] She frequently raised the issue of equal pay for equal work, and pressed for the appointment of more women to the boards of government agencies and state-run enterprises.[2] Wedgwood was the first married woman to serve in parliament (her colleagues all being either unmarried or widowed), and the media made frequent references to her domestic arrangements – one newspaper reported her retirement with the headline "Ivy is a housewife again".[10] She attempted to secure benefits for her husband equal to those given to the wives of male MPs, but was unsuccessful.[lower-alpha 1]

According to Malcolm Fraser, Wedgwood was at her most influential behind the scenes, both in parliament and within the Liberal Party.[11] She once quipped that her autobiography should be titled Men I Have Had Breakfast With.[2] She supported John Gorton's candidacy for the party leadership in 1968, but her initial enthusiasm was replaced by "distrust and disillusionment",[2] and she was later part of the group that worked to replace him with William McMahon.[3] Wedgwood was also prominent in Senate committees, most notably as a member of the Joint Committee of Public Accounts from 1955 until her retirement; she was its sole female member during that time. In 1968, she was appointed chair of the Select Committee on Medical and Hospital Costs, making her the first woman to chair a select committee. She later chaired the Standing Committee on Health and Welfare, overseeing the publication of a landmark report into disability issues.[2]

Wedgwood's final term in the Senate expired on 30 June 1971. Noting her retirement, The Herald described her as "one of the shrewdest minds in Canberra over the last two decades", but said that she was "comparatively unknown to the general public because she never grandstanded".[12] In 1974, Wedgwood was in attendance at the launch of the National Liberal Party, a right-wing splinter group founded by her former colleague George Hannan. However, it is unclear if she supported the new party or was merely an observer.[13]