| Book Review | Labour History, 93 | The History Cooperative

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Book Review

Deborah Brennan and Louise Chappell (eds), 'No fit place for women'?: Women in New South Wales Politics, 1856–2006, UNSW Press, Sydney, 2006. pp. xii + 289 $49.95 cloth.
This robust book emerged from the publishing project that marked the Sesquicentenary of Responsible Government in NSW. Its title comes from the 'maiden speech' of the first woman to sit in the NSW Parliament, Nationalist MP Mrs Millicent Preston-Stanley, who took her seat in 1925 and lambasted the men of all parties, including her own, who said Parliament was 'no fit place for women'. As she noted, if men criticised the place, it was an indictment of themselves, for it was 'an institution entirely of their own making'. Modern readers will not be at all surprised by Deborah Brennan's observation that the Daily Telegraph considered it essential to report what Mrs Preston-Stanley was wearing.	1
By the end of 2006, when this book was released, just 80 women had followed Mrs Preston-Stanley into the bear-pit, although some 2000 men have held positions on the green and red benches of the Mother Parliament during the last 150 years. Of course, since this book was published we have had a state election, which saw five new female faces in the lower house and two in the upper house. Yet new Liberal MP, Pru Goward, felt moved to use her inaugural speech to complain about the sexism of the place. It does seem, for all women's achievements in public office, that there is much more to be done to make Parliament a 'fit place' for women, let alone a welcoming one.	. . .

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