Wednesday, 30 July 2025

Condolences

Hilda Gracia Baylor AM and Joan Marjorie Coxsedge

Jaclyn SYMES (Northern Victoria – Treasurer, Minister for Industrial Relations, Minister for Regional Development) (18:19): I move, by leave:

That this house:

(1) acknowledges that Hilda Gracia Baylor AM and Joan Marjorie Coxsedge were the first two women elected to the Legislative Council;

(2) expresses its sincere sorrow at the death on 23 May 2025 of Gracia Baylor AM, member of the Legislative Council for the electoral province of Boronia from 1979 to 1985; and

(3) expresses its sincere sorrow at the death on 14 January 2024 of Joan Coxsedge, member for the Legislative Council for the electoral province of Melbourne West from 1979 to 1992.

Ms Baylor and Ms Coxsedge made history as the first two women elected to the Victorian Legislative Council in 1979, which really was not all that long ago – I was born around that time – in the areas of Boronia and Melbourne West respectively. They were born a couple of years apart. Both were activists and had heavy interest in the arts prior to being elected. Collectively they brought their passions to the Parliament and offered their views – namely, on the rights of women, which I thank them for – and both had an interest in the rights of workers.

Ms Baylor was also the first president of the Shire of Healesville, and following her time in state politics joined the National Council of Women, where she was later president. In 2003 she was admitted to the Victorian Honour Roll of Women.

While in office Ms Coxsedge wrote the newsletter Hard Facts for Hard Times from her Footscray office, in which she offered a left view of current events. She was later involved in many community groups and projects and to this end served on many boards.

Both lived into their 90s and passed away just roughly a year apart. I am sure that in their later years they were able to feel a sense of pride and perhaps relief that this place now looks a lot different to when they were here, with female representation across the political divide. On behalf of the government, I offer my condolences to the families of Ms Baylor and Ms Coxsedge.

David DAVIS (Southern Metropolitan) (18:21): I would like to associate the Liberals and Nationals with this condolence motion and at the outset thank the government for working to find a way through to acknowledge this important occasion. It was a seminal occasion in 1979 to see two women elected to this chamber, and it seemed to me impossible and wrong not to mark that in a clear and decisive way. In that sense I am very pleased that we are doing this. Some of us knew, obviously, Gracia Baylor. I did not know Joan Coxsedge, but many in this chamber did. Both were trailblazing women who made a significant contribution in their own right.

I particularly wanted to pick up a number of the points about Gracia Baylor. Both were elected in May 1979, and the Leader of the Government made the point that that was not that long ago. In fact Gracia became a member of the Social Development Committee, a member of the House Committee, a member of the Subordinate Legislation Committee and a member of the shadow cabinet, including the inner cabinet under Jeffrey Kennett. She resigned to actually contest in 1985 the Warrandyte seat.

But her history is actually very interesting. She was born in Brisbane in 1929 and was a schoolteacher and a law clerk. She was a very active schoolteacher until she was later married, indeed as often occurred at that time, and she worked in a family legal practice in this case. But no doubt those skills laid her in very good stead for the career that she had in this place and beyond. As the Leader of the Government has pointed out, she was very active in local government, including by becoming the first president of a number of country municipalities. Indeed later, after she was out of Parliament, she was a member and deputy convenor of the Victorian Women’s Council, trustee of the Queen Victoria Women’s Centre and president of the National Council of Women, and it is important to note that these organisations played, and continue to play, a very significant role in our state. She was awarded an AM in 1999 and was active again at the time of the centenary of Federation as a member of the Women Shaping the Nation committee. The Healesville shire, as I referred to before, was an important part of her history, and she was also active with the Australian Local Government Women’s Association Executive.

I think what is important to understand is that inside the Liberal Party she continued to advocate for the position of women. She continued to support women’s progress on a whole range of different fronts, and I think that quiet work that she often did inside the party is something that I particularly want to draw attention to. I certainly knew her quite well, and I know that many of my colleagues also knew Gracia. She had a very quiet and understated way, but her wisdom, her good sense and her judgement always came to the fore in conversations that you would have with her. I was delighted to have that acquaintance with her. I want to put on record the Liberal Party’s specific thanks to her. The torch that she carried is an important one that I am very, very cognisant of, which is one of the main reasons I was very keen to see this marked. As I said, I did not know Joan Coxsedge, but the contribution that she made to the Labor Party and to the broader community is something that I think should also be well marked.

Sarah MANSFIELD (Western Victoria) (18:26): On behalf of my Greens colleagues I would like to offer our condolences for the losses this chamber is reflecting on today, those of Gracia Baylor AM and Joan Coxsedge. Our deep condolences go to their families, children and friends, who will miss them very deeply. These were two women from opposite sides of politics, but they had plenty in common. The steps they took as the first women elected to Victoria’s Legislative Council paved the way for the many women after them. As one of those who have followed, I am indebted to these trailblazers.

I want to take a moment to reflect on the legacy of Gracia Baylor and her motivation to become politically active: the gaps in educational opportunities for her children living outside of metro Melbourne. It was the sort of issue not being adequately addressed by those who were making decisions, as was the case at that time with so many issues that impacted women and families. Lack of representation was a huge part of the reason for this and something Gracia sought to remedy.

Joan Coxsedge, an avid activist as part of the anti-war movement, protested against conscription and was jailed for her activities. While I did not know her, she sounds like a woman I would have had a bit of time for. She and her co-protesters were the first civilians charged under the summary offences act of 1971, which aimed to limit the rights of protesters, including acts of obstruction and trespassing. Joan was a passionate advocate for protecting the right to protest, and I do wonder what she would say in modern times.

Aside from their individual achievements, the fact of their election as women to this place at a time when social attitudes and structures limited access to many types of work for women, let alone political leadership, has left a tremendous legacy. How proud I am sure they would be to see this chamber achieving gender parity for the first time ever. Across all parties in all parliaments, we need all women. Great gains have been made in increasing the representation of women in the Parliament, but barriers remain. We have many examples to highlight what happens when deliberate efforts are not made to create viable pathways for women to get elected. I feel lucky to have been part of the inaugural Pathways to Politics for Women program, which has now expanded nationally and actively supports women and gender-diverse people with political aspirations.

We still have a long way to go before our parliaments represent the true diversity of our communities, including greater representation of multicultural communities, the LGBTQIA+ community, First Nations people and people with disabilities, different socio-economic backgrounds and different life experiences. Having parliaments that are a genuine reflection of our communities is important, because the decisions made better reflect community sentiment and because they illuminate issues many of us do not see or experience, which is something Gracia recognised and why her representation mattered so much. We also have to acknowledge that the current political structures and culture remain embedded in a patriarchal and colonial system. Dismantling this will take more than changing the people in the room, and this is something that I suspect Joan understood very well.

Once again, my condolences to the families of Gracia Baylor and Joan Coxsedge and my deep gratitude to them for the legacies that they have left.

Wendy LOVELL (Northern Victoria) (18:29): I rise to make a contribution to this motion to honour the lives of Gracia Baylor AM and Joan Coxsedge, the first two women who were elected to this house, in 1979. I did not know Joan Coxsedge, so I will confine my comments to Gracia Baylor, who I did know. Gracia was the Liberal member for Boronia Province from 1979 to 1985, when she resigned her seat in this house to contest the seat of Warrandyte. Gracia served in the shadow cabinet between 1982 and 1985 as the Shadow Minister for Senior Citizens’ Affairs and Shadow Minister for Early Childhood Development, Women’s Affairs and Community Welfare Services – sounds a little bit like some of the portfolios that I have held in my time as well.

Gracia was someone who served the community in many ways. She served as a Healesville shire councillor. She was chairman of the Healesville Water Trust. She was a state president of the Local Government Women’s Association. She was the chairman of the Eastern Metropolitan Regional Library Service, the president and a committee member of the Healesville Pre-school Centre, a member of the Royal Victorian Institute for the Blind and the Royal Victorian Eye and Ear Hospital, Red Cross, St John and a huge amount of other things, as well as being heavily involved with the National Council of Women. She was inducted into the Victorian Honour Roll of Women in 2003.

Gracia, like another Liberal that we celebrated this week, was a true Liberal. Just like Brian Dixon, she was caring, compassionate and progressive, and she always put the needs and best interests of the people of Victoria first. Gracia’s pathway to politics began when her husband bought a legal practice in Healesville, a place where they were to make their home for 40 years. Gracia got involved in many local organisations, and as their children were born, she became very concerned that there was no kindergarten in Healesville, because she was very anxious that her children have a year of kindergarten before they went to primary school, and she thought this was something that was lacking in their town. She could not make the councillors of the day – the council was mostly made up of farming men – understand the importance of early childhood. Early childhood and kindergarten was a push that developed from community, from women, post the Second World War to enhance the education of their children. Gracia was one of those leading women who established a kindergarten in her town.

When she could not convince the men, she decided that the thing that she would do was stand for council herself, and that way she could persuade them, because if she was in the room where things were being debated she could make a difference. Her youngest child was only 18 months old when she stood, and as she was doorknocking she was accused that if she got into council she would neglect her children. But she did not take any notice of that and she pushed ahead, and when the votes came in she topped the poll. She served for three terms, or 12 years, on the Healesville council, and after each term when she was re-elected she was overlooked for shire president. It was not until her last year on council that she actually became the shire president.

Not only did she achieve a kindergarten and get that up and running in Healesville, she also got the first social housing built in Healesville. The third thing that she was determined to achieve was a public library. All three of those things still exist in Healesville today. It is a lasting legacy.

Gracia then stood for Boronia Province in 1979 and became one of the first two women elected to this place, but the first woman ever sworn in in this place was Gracia Baylor. She said that when she was first elected to this place people found it hard to accept women, and the people who found it the hardest to accept women were actually the clerks. She said it was a very male-dominated atmosphere when she first came into this place, and she remembered sitting in one of the red leather chairs in the members room and the clerk coming in and taking a double look. She thought he was at the point of saying to her, ‘I’m sorry, you can’t sit there,’ before he realised that she could sit there. She said she never let it worry her. It was her right to sit there and it was her right to speak, and she spoke.

She described herself as a feminist because she believed in equal opportunity, but she never subscribed to going and protesting. She believed the best way to make progress is to get to where the decision-making is done, and that is what she always attempted to do.

When John Cain was the Premier of Victoria, Victoria was running out of money – sounds familiar, a Labor government running out of money – so what did they do? They attempted to sell off a lot of Crown land because they were short of money. They introduced a bill that was called the miscellaneous lands bill, and it was during debate on that bill that Gracia managed to convince this chamber to excise the Queen Victoria Hospital out of that bill. She was furious that the government was selling it off, because it was a hospital that was provided for the women by the women. Funding was raised by the Shilling Fund, and she convinced the chamber to excise it out of that bill. She gave a recent interview in which she recounted that story, and she said:

… John Cain was terribly annoyed. I remember him ringing me up when I got home to the hills, at midnight, and saying “what do you think you are doing?” I told him that “we wanted part of that hospital kept for the women of Victoria.

The government supported her in the end. She ended up saving one of the towers that is now the QV centre for women. So it is there for women in perpetuity because of the legacy of Gracia Baylor.

When I was first elected, I was made the Shadow Minister for Women’s Affairs, and Gracia was actually the chair of the Queen Victoria Women’s Centre Trust at that time. I had a lot to do with her in that time, and it was a great experience for me to learn from a master.

Gracia was also the initiator of baby capsules in Victoria. It had been brought to her attention that a lot of babies were being severely injured in car crashes or even killed in car crashes, so she got baby capsules that were made available through local government centres and places like child welfare centres. We know that that policy has gone on to save the lives of many, many babies in Victoria. She was also the person who advocated to get mammograms included under Medicare. She obviously lived her life to improve the lives of other people, but particularly women.

Gracia was asked in that interview that I spoke of what she would say to young women who are interested in representing their local communities in politics, and she said:

I say go for it. The only way that a woman can wield some power in government is to be a minister. That’s where the power lies. That’s where they can make changes. Though, when they sit around the table with men, you won’t get anywhere if you’re too abrasive, you just do your homework, put up a good argument, and then men will support you. So that’s my message, but it’s not an easy road.

Gracia Baylor has left the women of Victoria an incredible legacy and an exemplary example of how to achieve real progress in public life. I extend my deepest condolences to her four children Andrew, Donal, Peter and Belinda, their partners and her 10 grandchildren. Vale, Gracia Baylor.

Nick McGOWAN (North-Eastern Metropolitan) (18:38): I rise today to pay tribute to the late Hilda Gracia Baylor AM, a distinguished former member of this Parliament and a pioneer in Victorian political life who passed away at Eastern Health, Wantirna, on 23 May 2025 at the age of 95. Gracia was born in Queensland, as we have heard, daughter of Herbert David Parry-Okeden, a grazier who later served in the Royal Australian Air Force in World War II, and Hilary May Webster.

When Gracia Baylor was elected to this chamber in 1979, representing Boronia Province, which today is part of the region I am proud to represent, she made history by being one of two women, the other being Joan Coxsedge, as we have heard today, elected to the Victorian Legislative Council. Gracia was also the first woman member of the Liberal Party to be elected to the Legislative Council. Interestingly for me, the first woman elected at a general election was Ivy Weber in 1937, who served as an independent for three terms as the member for Nunawading. Millie Peacock had the honour of being our state’s first woman elected at a by-election some four years earlier in 1933. Kay Setches AM and Dee Ryall would proudly follow in Ivy and Gracia’s local footsteps as the member for Ringwood decades apart. I think that makes us especially lucky out Ringwood way.

In short, Gracia was part of breaking the glass ceiling long before the term was well appreciated. Gracia celebrated both her election and the 35 other women who were members of the Parliament in Australia at that time. Gracia also celebrated in fact that some 160 women were at that time serving as municipal councillors across Victoria. It is perhaps most appropriate to deploy Gracia’s words one more time in this chamber. She said:

We can be proud indeed of the pioneering women who have gone before us in State and Federal Parliaments.

It would be short-changing Gracia if this is all I focus on in my tribute today. In preparation for this speech I went back and read Gracia’s inaugural speech. Gracia was intently focused on what she was going to do in Parliament. Having been elected, her speech focused on all the ways in which she hoped to serve her community, representing one and all, men, women and children.

Gracia was a champion of local governments, having been, as we have heard, a councillor for 12 years in the Healesville shire before being elected to state Parliament. As she stated in her speech:

People living and working as part of a local community are best able to judge and assess the needs of the people around them. Very often needs have to be assessed in the context in which they appear. In turn, people who need help are more likely to know where to turn if that help can be found locally.

I am proud that all these years on, as an MP for the same district I champion the same values. Indeed democracy is best served when communities can make decisions about their own needs and how best to meet these needs.

Gracia and I shared one more passion: the wellbeing and education of our children. A mother of four, Hilda saw the purpose of education as being more than just teaching skills. I will share her vision in her own words:

The aim of education should be to produce a well-rounded citizen, who has not only achieved satisfactory levels of literacy and numeracy but who has also developed a sense of self-esteem and respect for others.

Gracia championed these causes, and for more than the next seven years in the Victorian Parliament served on important local committees in this place, including the Social Development Committee, the House Committee and the Subordinate Legislation Committee.

In all Gracia’s roles she advanced the rights of women, the welfare of families and the strength of communities across our great state. Gracia leaves behind many achievements. Perhaps towering among the many peaks include her initiatives. We have heard of council-approved baby capsules, meaning that parents no longer took their newborn infants home in a bassinet. She was also instrumental, as we have heard, in achieving mammograms approved for the Medicare register, an action that no doubt saved thousands if not millions of women’s lives. Fittingly, Gracia was instrumental in ensuring the only remaining tower of the Queen Victoria Memorial Hospital was saved from demolition, which stands to this very day as a centre for women’s health and a beacon to others in this place of what a tenacious, passionate former politician could achieve long after she graced these corridors in 1985.

Gracia went on to serve as the president of the National Council of Women of Australia from 1997 to 2000, advocating nationally and internationally for gender equality and civic participation. In recognition of her service she was appointed a Member of the Order of Australia and inducted to the Victorian Honour Roll of Women.

I extend our deepest condolences to her friends and colleagues. A beloved wife of the late Richard, I extend heartfelt sympathies and love to her children Andrew, Donal, Peter and Belinda and Gracia’s 10 grandchildren Rosalie, Charlie, William, Hilda, Jesse, Eldon, Gibson, Harry, Grace and George. We honour Gracia’s trailblazing spirit, her public service and her unwavering commitment to the communities she represented. May her legacy endure and may her achievements inspire many women and men alike to follow in her footsteps.

The PRESIDENT: I ask members to signify their assent by rising in their places for 1 minute’s silence.

Motion agreed to in silence, members showing unanimous agreement by standing in their places.