Executive Director, Victoria Women’s Trust
After an extensive public policy career, Mary became the Executive Director of the Victorian Women’s Trust at the end of 1996. She has designed and led ground-breaking community engagement initiatives, such as the Purple Sage Project and Our Watermark Australia. These were two early examples of the Trust’s Kitchen Table Conversation model which has have since become a nationally lauded approach to democratic engagement as exemplified in the successful application of the model in 2012/2013 which saw the election of Independent Cathy McGowan to the seat of Indi.
Mary has led other major Trust initiatives including the exhibition, Ordinary Women, Extraordinary Lives; the development of Here She Is! as a register of women; the Breakthrough for Gender Equality Conference in Melbourne in November 2016, the largest feminist gathering on record; the research and publication of About Bloody Time: The menstrual revolution we have to have; the creation of the Rosie website for girls; and the development of Club Respect as a harm-prevention initiative for community sports clubs across the country.
In 2012, Mary authored A Switch in Time – Restoring Respect to Australian Politics which was distributed widely across Australia. She also authored the Trust’s publication of a one-page advertisement in four national newspapers called Credit Where Credit is Due, which paid tribute to the leadership and capacity of Julia Gillard as the nation’s first female prime minister.
In June 2012, Mary was appointed an Officer of the Order of Australia, for her distinguished services to public policy and advocacy for the advancement of women. In 2016, Mary won the Public Policy category as part of the AFR/Westpac’s 100 Women of Influence for her years of work in shaping public policy in Australia.
