Fearless Beatrice Faust

Judith Brett (Fearless Beatrice Faust) and Iola Mathews (Race Mathews) discuss the origins of the Women’s Electoral Lobby and the powerhouse Beatrice Faust. 

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JUDITH BRETT

Judith Brett is emeritus professor of politics at La Trobe University. A former editor of Meanjin and columnist for The Age, she won the National Biography Award in 2018 for The Enigmatic Mr Deakin. She is the author of four Quarterly Essays: Relaxed and Comfortable, Exit Right, Fair Share and The Coal Curse. Her other books include From Secret Ballot to Democracy Sausage, Robert Menzies’ Forgotten People and Australian Liberals and the Moral Middle Class.

IOLA MATHEWS

Iola Mathews OAM is an author, co-founder of the Women’s Electoral Lobby, and a former journalist at The Age. Later she worked at the ACTU as an industrial officer and advocate, specialising in women’s employment, and was the advocate in the parental leave case, and equal pay cases for child care workers and clerical workers. She is the author of several books, including My Mother, My Writing and Me: A Memoir; Chequered Lives: John Barton Hack and Stephen Hack and the Early Days of South Australia; and Winning for Women: A Personal Story, and more recently Race Mathews: A Political Life.