Joyce Steele

Joyce Steele (29 May 1909 24 September 1991) was an Australian politician and one of the first two women elected to the Parliament of South Australia, the other being Jessie Cooper. Steele was elected to the House of Assembly and Cooper was elected to the Legislative Council at the 1959 election.[1] Ironically, while South Australian women had been given the right to vote and stand for election—a right they had gained at the 1896 election—South Australia had been the last state to elect a female representative.[2]

Joyce Steele
Minister for Aboriginal Affairs and Housing
In office
2 March 1970  2 June 1970
PremierSteele Hall
Preceded byRobin Millhouse
Succeeded byDon Dunstan
Minister of Education
In office
17 April 1968  2 March 1970
PremierSteele Hall
Preceded byRonald Loveday
Succeeded byJohn Coumbe
Member for Davenport
Burnside (1959—1970)
In office
7 March 1959  9 March 1973
Preceded byGeoffrey Clarke
Succeeded byDean Brown
Personal details
Born
Joyce Steele

(1909-05-29)29 May 1909
Died24 September 1991(1991-09-24) (aged 82)
Political partyLiberal
OccupationHomemaker

Prior to her election, Joyce Steele was a homemaker, an ABC broadcaster and active in community organisations, including the Queen Adelaide Club (the women's equivalent of the exclusive Adelaide Club). She was pre-selected for the Liberal and Country League's (LCL) safest metropolitan seat, Burnside, in 1959 and was comfortably elected. She was not a feminist, and was affiliated with the conservative wing of the LCL.[2]

Molly Byrne was Labor's first female elected to the Parliament of South Australia at the 1965 election, and the third ahead of Steele and Cooper.

Steele was also the first South Australian woman to achieve Cabinet rank in the South Australian Parliament as Minister of Education in the Hall Government from 1968 to 1969. As South Australian schools were increasingly overcrowded due to the children of the baby boomers passing through, it was a tough portfolio, although moderate increases in education spending were allocated. She took the Social Welfare ministry for the remainder of the Hall government's term.[2]

After the government passed electoral reform legislation in 1968, Burnside was mostly replaced by the equally safe seat of Bragg. However, Steele did not contest this seat, instead transferring to the LCL's safest new seat, Davenport, which covered the south-east of the City of Burnside. She received 68% of the primary vote in the 1970 election. On 9 June 1973, Young Liberals State President and Liberal Movement member Dean Brown announced his intention to stand for Davenport pre-selection. Steele, in response, announced her retirement, but not without declaring that "[Dean] certainly will not have my support. I think my attitude to the Liberal Movement is well known".

In the 1981 New Years Honours Steele was made an Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE).[3]

See also

References

  1. "Joyce Steele OBE". Former members of the Parliament of South Australia. Retrieved 14 December 2022.
  2. Stock, Jenny Tilby (2021). "Steele, Joyce (1909–1991)". Australian Dictionary of Biography. Vol. 19. National Centre of Biography, Australian National University. ISSN 1833-7538. Retrieved 14 December 2022.
  3. "Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) entry for Mrs Joyce Steele". It's an Honour, Australian Honours Database. Canberra, Australia: Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet. Public Service
  • Hall, Steele (1973). A Liberal Awakening: The LM Story. Investigator Press. ISBN 0-85864-017-1.
  • Jaensch, Dean (1986). The Flinders History of South Australia: Political History. Wakefield Press. ISBN 0-949268-52-6.
  • Cockburn, Stewart (1991). Playford: Benevolent Despot. Axiom Publishing. ISBN 0-9594164-4-7.
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