ELIZABETH EVATT
The Hon. Elizabeth Evatt AC, was Chief Judge of the Family Court of Australia, 1976 to 1988, and President of the Australian Law Reform Commission, 1988 to 1993. From 1984 to 1992 she was a member of the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination; she chaired the Committee from 1989-1991. From 1993 to 2000 she was a member of the UN Human Rights Committee. She was a Judge of the World Bank Administrative Tribunal from 1998 to 2006, and a Commissioner of the International Commission of Jurists from 2003 to 2018. Elizabeth was Chancellor of the University of Newcastle from 1988 to 1994. Currently she is a board member of Sisterhood is Global. She can recall her uncle, Dr Evatt, returning from the United States in 1941 with four Norman Rockwell posters setting out President Roosevelt’s Four Freedoms; freedom of speech, freedom of worship, freedom from want and freedom from fear. These ideals have informed Elizabeth’s belief that human rights and social justice for women are vital pre-conditions both for peace at home and globally.
JEANNETTE MCHUGH
Jeannette McHugh was a Labor Member of the House of Representatives in the Parliament of the Commonwealth of Australia, 1983 to 1996. The first woman elected to the Parliament from New South Wales, McHugh represented the electorate of Phillip (1983-93) and — after that division was abolished in a redistribution — the electorate of Grayndler (1993-96). In the 1990 election, which secured Labor’s fourth consecutive term of government under the leadership of Bob Hawke, Jeannette increased her winning margin with the strong support of the trade union movement in a contest against the high-profile candidate from the Liberal Party, Charles Copeman, the reactionary employer in the bitter Robe River dispute of 1986. For many years, Jeannette was a leading Labor opponent of uranium mining. Between 1990 and 1992, she chaired inquiries of the House of Representatives Standing Committee on the Environment, Recreation and the Arts. From 1992 to 1996 she served in the Keating Labor Government as the Minister for Consumer Affairs, the first woman from New South Wales to become a federal minister.
