Winifred Margaret Piesse

Birth Date 12 June 1923 Place Narre Warren, ,

Parents Daughter of Frederick Benjamin Aumann, orchardist, and Marguerette Gertrude Pettingill

Marriage and Family Married 3 September 1947, Christ Church, South Yarra, Victoria to Mervyn Charles Piesse, son of Charles Austin Piesse and Flora Elizabeth Leonora Hickson Children: two sons and one daughter Widowed 31 March 1966

Death Date 11 March 2017 Place Western Australia

Religion Church of England

Education Educated Narre Warren and Dandenong High School, Victoria Completed Nursing General Certificate, Midwifery and Child Health Certificates

Occupation Nurse

Employment History Nursing in Victoria until December 1946, then to WA, nurse at Busselton and Narrogin 1946–1947 and Narrogin, Wagin and Dumbleyung 1966–1977 Became child health nurse at Wagin clinic Following death of husband also managed farms at Wagin

House MLC

Local Government Wagin Shire Council August 1971–May 1977 (first woman Service to serve)

Party National Country Party Joined Country Party 1948; member of Country Party and National Country Party until 1983 Branch and division secretary

Date Elected 22 May 1977

Year Retired/Resigned 1983

Electorate Lower Central

Parliamentary Service Electorates

 MLC Lower Central Province 22 May 1977–21 May 1983  Contested Lower Central Province 19 February 1983

Committees

 Member Select Committee on National Parks 1979 and 1980–1981

Historical Notes

 First woman elected to WA State Parliament to represent Country Party

Background/Membership Retired in 1983 and moved to town in Wagin For many years active in local organisations Member Farmers’ Union Member Royal Australian Nursing Federation Justice of the Peace, 1971 President Wagin branch CWA, Wagin branch Red Cross Nursing officer St John Ambulance Brigade Associate member WA Club and Royal Justices Association President Wagin Golf Association Member Wagin Bowling Club

MAKING A DIFFERENCE—A FRONTIER OF FIRSTS WOMEN IN THE WESTERN AUSTRALIAN PARLIAMENT 1921–2012

David Black and Harry Phillips

Parliamentary History Project Parliament of Western Australia 2012

Women in the Western Australian Parliament 1921–2012 ______

WINIFRED MARGARET PIESSE

MLC Lower Central Province 22 May 1977–21 May 1983 (NCP). Member Select Committee on National Parks 1980–1981. First woman National (Country) Party member elected to the Legislative Council.

When Winifred Piesse was elected to the Legislative Council for the Lower Central Province for a six year term commencing in May 1977 she became the first woman ever to represent the Country Party (or National Country Party) in either House of the Western Australian Parliament. She won the seat comfortably on Liberal preferences in 1977 but six years later her preferences helped to elect the Liberal candidate after she had failed by less than 400 votes to avoid elimination after the first count.

Winifred was born on 12 June 1923 at Narre Warren in Victoria, 25 miles east of , daughter of Frederick Aumann, an orchardist, and his wife, Marguerite, and was educated at the Narre Warren State School before going to Dandenong High School.1 Through ill health she left school at fifteen but subsequently completed her nursing general certificate and certificates in midwifery and child health and worked as a nurse at Warragul and in Melbourne from 1944 until the end of 1946, when she moved to Western Australia. There she worked in hospitals, first in Busselton and then in Narrogin, in order to be nearer her future husband Mervyn Piesse, a farmer in Wagin (and son of Charles Austin Piesse, who had sat in the Western Australian Legislative Council from 1894 to 1914), whom she had met in Busselton.2 The couple were married on 3 September 1947 at the Christ Church in South Yarra and Winifred subsequently had three children, two boys and one girl. On the death of her husband in March 1966 she returned to nursing at Narrogin, Wagin and Dumbleyung and as a child health nurse at the Wagin clinic as well as managing farms in the Wagin area until she entered Parliament in 1977.3

1 Winifred Piesse, Interview by Gail O’Hanlon (1996), Western Australian Parliamentary History Project, p. 1. 2 Ibid., pp 30ff. 3 Ibid., pp. 47ff.

125 Making a Difference—A Frontier of Firsts ______

Winifred first joined the Country Party in 1948 and was soon an active member serving as both branch and divisional secretary. In August 1971 she became the first woman elected to the Wagin Shire Council and remained a councillor until winning her parliamentary seat. Over the years she had been active in a variety of local organisations and she continued in this vein after leaving politics. At various times she was a nursing officer with the St John’s Ambulance brigade, a member of the Farmers Union and Royal Australian Nursing Federation, and president of the Wagin branch of the Country Women’s Association and of the Red Cross. Golf and lawn bowls were her main sporting interests and she was for a time president of the Wagin Golf Association. In 1971 she became a JP.

Winifred made her Inaugural Speech when seconding the motion to adopt the Address-in- Reply in August 1977. She took the opportunity then, and at greater length in the following year, to focus on the position of youth in Western Australian society.

We have a great responsibility in preparing our children for life. We must give them the incentive to progress. We must encourage them to work on the traditions of their forebears; and to lift their thoughts beyond the immediate future. We must give them the vision splendid.4

Our Government, social workers, and others are to be commended for their efforts to assist people, but the ultimate mandate for laying the guidelines for basic law and order rests with the community in general and with parents in particular. Parental responsibility is a moral obligation and not an option. There can be no doubt that our children are—and always will be—our most valuable asset and our greatest investment. But our younger generation are finding it increasingly difficult to accept their responsibilities and thus retain their independence in this complex and competitive environment … one thing that we must do at this critical stage is to reinstate a sense of real values … If we do not, we run the risk of further aggravating the situation which has slowly evolved—a system where someone else takes over the problem, thus diminishing personal responsibility and taking away self-respect.5

She returned to the theme in 1979 expressing considerable concern at the type of literature to which children were being exposed in schools:

Literature paints a picture which remains in one’s mind. It is a picture which, when one is upset or alone, comes back to one’s mind. It seems to me what is happening is that the minds of children are being filled with pictures of sordidness, degradation and hopelessness and we do not want this.6

Time and time again we have heard, in this place and outside, about the apathy of young people and we are told this is because there are no jobs and they are unemployed. In the 1930s people had no jobs and no money, but I am certain there was not the degradation, violence and filth proliferated as it is now.7

Given her nursing background it was only to be expected that health issues would be one of Winifred’s central concerns, and in this instance she addressed the problem of breast cancer:

[W]hat I want the Government to fund is the appointment in Western Australia of a research fellow to do substantial research into cancer, and more specifically, into breast cancer in young women. It is true that all cancers are very serious; and the disease is very wide ranging. If we

4 WAPD(LC), 16 August 1977, p. 446. 5 WAPD(LC), 9 March 1978, p. 7. 6 WAPD(LC), 15 November 1979, p. 4793. 7 Ibid., p. 4794.

126 Women in the Western Australian Parliament 1921–2012 ______

tried to research the whole topic, we would not have the necessary funds and we would perhaps spread our effort too thinly; therefore I suggest that we consolidate the work in order to obtain results in the area in which we are particularly concerned. The research would be spread over the range of cancers that we have to fight, but with the accent on breast cancer.

The reason I have selected breast cancer for this proposal is that it is a known fact that young mothers are affected particularly by it. We are losing our young mothers and they are leaving small children motherless. That is a dreadful situation.

… [T]he subject is so important that we must be able to acquire the funds to make this appointment. I do not expect it to be made tomorrow; but I do expect and hope that it will be made within 12 months of the first collated figures from the cancer register coming to hand.8

She was also very concerned about ‘the increasing number of children who engage in the habit of smoking’:

With all the evidence available to us, it is rather foolish to dispute the fact that smoking is a health hazard … In the case of adults, it is up to them to decide whether or not they will smoke; but where juveniles are involved it is a different matter … It is well known that for many generations, the idea of having a secret puff behind the shelter shed was regarded as a bit of a lark and I am sure most members of the House would have indulged in that practice. However, the juvenile smoking we see today has gone a long way beyond that …9

Unlike many other country members, Winifred has remained a country resident throughout her post-parliamentary years and at all times the problem of avoiding the drift to the cities was ever present in her mind:

If the people are to stay in the country areas—and I am not only speaking of the farming people, but all the other people in the country—in order to produce and develop our natural resources, then they must have the ordinary facilities we have come to expect as our right in this fairly affluent State at the present time …10

Smaller towns must retain their essential services for the people within them … Each time a government employee is removed from the town of Wagin or the smaller country towns, the businesses in the town face decreasing trade.11

After losing her parliamentary seat in 1983 Winifred briefly contemplated seeking to return to politics but decided against making any further attempt, nor did she remain involved with the extra-parliamentary activities of the newly integrated National Party. In the years that followed she served a three-year term on the local hospital board and maintained links with the CWA and the Waratah old people’s hostel as well as the church vestry council, plus an active participation in golf and bowls.

8 WAPD(LC), 18 November 1981, p. 5785. 9 WAPD(LC), 3 September 1980, p. 904. 10 WAPD(LC), 2 November 1977, p. 2932. 11 WAPD(LC), 3 September 1980, pp. 902–903.

127 Making a Difference—A Frontier of Firsts ______

Reflections by the Member on Her Parliamentary Career

Prior to 1977, entering politics and Parliament were never on my list of ‘things I must do before I die!’

The women’s liberation movement was gathering momentum in the 1970s. I was far too busy in those days to pay much attention to it. Besides, no one with my vital statistics could ever afford to burn her bra!

My husband died in 1966, so I took over management of a fairly large farming enterprise until my sons were old enough to leave school and take charge.

In 1971 I was the first (and until then the only) woman elected to the Wagin Shire Council. Because of this, I was invited to attend the ‘Women in Politics’ conference in Canberra in 1975. That was an educational experience for me, but I must admit that I was horrified at much that I heard and saw at that conference. It became clear to me that what many of the advocates at that conference were proposing was not equality for women but domination by women. Had they obtained that, I believe they would have been even more unhappy than they already were. No doubt there are flaws in our legislation concerning women, which should be adjusted, but I do not think domination is the way to go.

On my return from Canberra, I was interviewed regarding my impressions and experience of the conference. Having voiced my disappointment at the attitudes displayed, I was asked what I intended to do about it. Glibly I answered that I would do anything in my power to help promote necessary changes, but without the radical aggression as displayed at the conference.

It was following this that the then Country Party invited me to nominate for a seat in the State Parliament. On 24 May 1977, I was sworn in to the Legislative Council.

I am a trained nurse of some years experience, and starting in State Parliament was something like starting in a new hospital except that in a new hospital someone ‘looks out’ for you for the first few days. Here I must pay tribute to each member of the then House staff. They were always most helpful to me. A member of the staff showed me where the main rooms were, for example, chambers, library and dining room.

A member of my own party told me that there would be a meeting of our party at 10.00 am in the Country Party room and a meeting of the joint party (Country Party and Liberals) in the joint party room at 2.00 pm. I arrived at the joint party room at 1.55 pm just as the door opened and a man emerged, closing the door firmly behind him, he looked at me and said, ‘YOU can’t go in there!’, I replied, ‘I thought this was the joint party meeting.’ He said it was, ‘but YOU can’t go in there’. I told him I was the new member for Lower Central and he replied ‘Oh well, I suppose you CAN go in then.’ There were no other women in the room, but a number of the men whom I did not know.

For some years I had run our farms, attended sheep and cattle sales, and arranged my own bidding if I was buying. I had inspected our wool on the showroom floor and attended the wool auctions—all places run by men—and I had always felt at ease in those situations.

128 Women in the Western Australian Parliament 1921–2012 ______

Parliament was a different environment. There was a sort of defensive attitude among some of the members. As time passed, I realised this defence was not actually directed at me, but also at each other. I came to the conclusion that some Ministers, in cabinet, felt a need constantly to defend their right to be there, and some members, not in cabinet, felt a need to defend their place on the ‘ladder’ in the hope that someday they would make it to the top. As I had no aspirations to enter Cabinet, it was a worry I did not have to carry.

Those first few months were hard. Looking back, I realise the festering of the division within the Country Party did not help.

The seat allocated to me in the chamber was in the back row between Norm Baxter (Country Party) and George Berry (Liberal). Both had had long experience as MLCs and both were tremendously helpful to me during my time in Parliament.

One evening, shortly after my admission to the hallowed chamber, the Leader of the House, Graham MacKinnon, was moving around the chamber having a brief chat with the Members. When he came to us he said, ‘You’re a lucky fellow, George, you always were.’ George said, ‘Why am I lucky?’ To which Graham replied, ‘We get one new woman member and you get to sit next to her!’ George turned in his seat and looked me up and down and said, ‘Well—I don’t know if I am lucky yet, I don’t know what she is going to be like!’ I must have passed assessment, for we became good friends.

On one occasion I was given the honour of opening the debate on the Address-in-Reply to the Governor at the opening of Parliament. This is one of those occasions when one is permitted to read one’s speech. For the opening of Parliament the House was packed with VIPs and other visitors, and as I entered the chamber George asked, ‘Are you nervous, girl?’ I replied, ‘A little bit.’ George said, ‘Don’t be nervous, girl, if you start to sit down, Norm and I will stand you up again!’

While the House is sitting, it is usual for the members to have a pre-dinner drink in the bar. I was somewhat reticent about this, as the other women members had husbands to go home to for dinner, so the bar would be all male. I did not want to intrude on their yarn swapping, but my Country Party members urged me to join them saying, ‘There is no division of the sexes here—all are members, so you must come. Besides the money from the bar subsidises the cost of the meals!’ With an invitation like that, who could refuse?

Incidentally, some of the yarns were quite funny, but others reminded me of the little boys behind the shelter shed when I was in fourth grade primary!

I did not enter Parliament believing that I could move mountains, rather that I might be able to bring attention to matters of concern to people living in the country, and to the needs of women, (particularly in health matters) and of children (particularly in education).

The worst thing during my time in Parliament, was the long distances to travel throughout Lower Central Province. Sometimes I had to change my dress in a parking place on the roadside, when going from a school sports presentation on to a formal dinner over 160 kilometres away. There are no freeways in the ‘bush’ and most roads are narrow, winding and hilly. I had no spouse to share the driving, and often I would be too tired to eat. I did find that a bit of cheese and a spoonful of honey helped one survive all day.

129 Making a Difference—A Frontier of Firsts ______

One of the best memories of my time in Parliament happened the morning after I had made a plea for finance and strategy to combat breast cancer in women—a problem becoming ever more prevalent among our young women. Quite a number of men—members of both sides of the House and staff—came quietly to my office and thanked me for raising that issue. Among them was Hon John Tonkin, ex-Labor Premier, retired. All of these men had lost family members or close friends to this dreadful disease, but had hesitated to raise the issue in Parliament.

Perhaps the best memory from outside the Parliament was when a lady shire councillor proposing a toast to MPs in her area said, ‘Win Piesse has shown us that a woman can retain her femininity and still be very successful in public life. She does not have to adopt a masculine manner.’ I treasure that remark.

130 lTuesday, 16th August, 1977] 445

congratulations to you, Mr President, on your liegislathtt atnunrtl appointment to the high office you now hold. 1 am Tuesday, the 16th August, 1977 aware of the great esteem in which you are held by your colleagues of long-standing, and in the The PRESIDENT (the Hon. Clive GriffithsJ short time it has been my pleasure to know you I took the Chair at 4.30 p.m., and read prayers. can understand why this is so. I trust your term of office will be both stimulating and rewarding for HANSARD you. Availability I congratulate the Leader of the House and his fellow Ministers, and also the Leader of the THE PRESIDENT (the Hon. Clive Grirtiths): Opposition. Members may have noticed that their copies of the last two volumes of Hansard have not arrived. I wish to thank honourable members, both old I wish to advise that the Government Printing and new, and the officers and members or the Office has installed a new printing device which is House staff, who have assisted me in so many operated by a computer; and, as apparently ways and with such kindness since I was elected frequently occurs with computers, something has to the House. gone wrong. The Government Printer expresses I take this opportunity also to pay tribute to my his sincere apologies for the inability to have predecessor, the Hon. T. 0 . Perry, who did not Hansard Nos. 2 and 3 ready but he has assured seek re-election because of ill-health. Tom Perry me we should have both volumes at this time worked very hard to understand the needs or the lo morrow. people whom he represented. That understanding, coupled with his sincerity of purpose, often forced QUESTIONS him to take the less popular decision, which is not an easy thing to do. I wish him a long and Questions were taken at this stage. enjoyable retirement. It is with pleasure that I take my place in the ADDRESS-IN-REPLY: FOURTH DAY House, and I do so in the full knowledge of my Motion responsibility as a member of the Legislative Council, as the first National Country Party Debate resumed, from the 4th August, on the following motion moved by the Hon. R. G. Pike- woman member of State Parliament, and as the first woman member of a family which has been That the following address be presented to associated with the representation of a province His Excellency- since the late C. A. Piesse was elected as a May it please Your Excellency: member for South-East Province in 1894. We, the Members of the Legislative It goes without saying that many changes have Council of the Parliament of ·taken place in this State since 1894. However, in Western Australia in Parliament studying the history of our ea rly development and assembled, beg to express our the ambitions and disappointments of our loyalty to our Most Gracious pioneers, two things clearly stand out. Sovereign and to thank Your One is the courage and determination with Excellency for the Speech you have which they set about spreading the population been pleased to deliver to throughout the length and breadth of this great Parliament. State. They worked hard and for long hours under THE HON. W. M. PIESSE (Lower Central) harsh conditions, laying the foundations for the (4.58 p.m.}: Mr President, 1 address myself to the material comforts of today and tne far easier House for the first time with a sense of duty and circumstances which we now enjoy. Their labours of high responsibility, and with a sense of would have been in vain were it not so. obligation to the traditions of services which have The other factor which shines through the early been so faithfully observed by those who have history of this State is the reason for their preceded me as the representatives of Lower efforts-the underlying vision which those early Central Province. pioneers cherished. That vision, Mr President, I tha nk the electors, who supported me on the was not just to make a quick quid, or should I say 19th of February last. I am well aware of the fact a fast buck; not just to gather more creature that it is my responsibility to represent all the comforts about themselves. The vision was for the electors of the Lower Central Province. future generations who would follow. I take this opportunity of e11tending my Our pioneers found great satisfaction in their 446 [COUNCIL] individual efforts in the shaping of our return. Others who are already working in inheritance. There are times when it seems to me country areas find it very difficult to locate a that we have lost that vision. There are times venue at which they can study and improve their when it seems to m1< that we have forgotten that skills. Many country towns are in need of a the greatest responsibility of any civilization is in variety of skilled technicians, and it is my hope the care and the training of its young. In this we that planning for expansion of technical education must ensure that the foundations already put in country areas will be done on a more practical down for the quality of life must be continued for basis. the benefit of the next generation. Referring again to the Speech of His Maybe the goals were easier to identify a Excellency, I commend the Government on its generation or two ago when our forebears were establishment of a water resources council. The engaged in opening up and developing this people of Western Australia are most conscious of country of ours. We have progressed far during our vulnerable position in relation to water the intervening years. If we believe that there are supplies. no further advances to be made and that we have I am concerned that, despite everything, in a reached the ultimate, then we have indeed lost the normal winter millions of gallons of water escape vision. to the sea. I would suggest we should find better We have a great responsibility in preparing our ways of increasing our capacity to conserve water children for life. We must give them the incentive where it falls on the land. I hope, also, that the to progress. We must encourage them to work on Water Resources Council wilt give attention to the traditions of their forebears; and to lift their the recycling of the vast quantities of water now thoughts beyond the immediate future. We must lost in the metropolitan area. give them the vision splendid. People in country areas still tend to regard I was greatly impressed by His Excellency Sir scheme water· and electricity in the category of Wallace Kyle who, when opening Parliament, luxury items. On the other hand, communications placed stress on the importance of education and and transport are essential in 1heir life patterns. particularly on the early childhood branch. It is Costs of the former are prohibitive, and freight fairly well known that much harm can be done to charges can almost be described as punitive. The the expanding mind of a child if that child is greatest problem confronting country people is pushed too soon into a formal school situation. the high level of freight costs. Western Australia Yet, because of our much wider knowledge of depends very largely on primary production, yet it child development, we know that much can be calls on the producer to meet freight costs both done in early childhood to assist the development ways. of confident and well-balanced citizens. This is a Mr President, I am thinking not only of very specialised field and I am pleased to see it is farmers. The greatest handicap imposed upon the being recognised as such. small businessman in a country region is the high There are a great many areas within the broad cost of freights. It is in-built into the high cost of spectrum of education which require close living in the country. If we are going to keep attention. It is not my intention at this stage lo people in lhe country-and we agree that we elaborate on the specific areas, other than to must-then we must make Jiving in the country comment on one or two aspects of concern. attractive. We must make it possible for the small At the present time there are very limited man who wishes to remain so, to continue in his opportunities for country children to obtain an chosen lifestyle. understanding of music. I feel the resources of the Serious consideration must be given to praclica[ department should be utilised at least to bring support for our decentralisation policies by the courses for musical appreciation to classes at alt introduction of a system of freight equalisation. It levels. In today's conditions, when life is but a is part and parcel of decentralisation progra mmes mirage for many young people, an affection for in other countries, such as South Africa, and I say music could well open up a broader avenue of this on good authority as it is only a few yea rs diversion for them. since I visited that country and was told that was Another area of educa tion which I would like to part of that country's policy. h should not be see expanded in country a reas is technical beyond our resources to subsidise freight, education. It is true that in most instances people particularly on consumer goods. wishing to acquire technical skills have to travel We seem 10 be reversing the endeavours of our to the metropolitan area, and once having State pioneers. They pushed transport lines out in travelled there it is very difficult for them to all directions to facilitate the development of the (Tuesday, 16th, August, 1977) 447 country and the spread of the population. Now we be given to local shires by the Government paying are contracting and withdrawing those facilities. normal rating on Forests Department land under Communication in sparsely populated areas is a softwood production. I realise this suggestion may matter of tremendous importance. Greatly be viewed as something of a heresy, but the land improved telecommunications have been of which I speak -previously paid rates lo local developed, but the cost is such that they cannot be government and is now being utilised for a afforded by people in isolated areas. commercial venture. This places it in a different category from virgin forest or national park land. Mail services costing 18 times as much as they did in 1900 are delayed in some areas because the I applaud the Government on its action in offices once established there to receive mail have assisting fruit growers to undertake a replanting now been closed. programme designed to produce canning !,'.arieties of stone fruits for the Manjimup factory, and I I acknowledge I am intruding into a Federal congratulate the Manjimup factory on the quality field, but I am concerned that the dramatic of its ·products. I have consumed and enjoyed the advances which have been made are washing over Manjimup products frequently arid I hope other so many country people. members have given similar support to these The matters of which I have spoken are of produ_cts. concern to our whole State. Brieny, I would like In the lower area of Warren, we have some now to mention some matters concerning Lower quite unique areas to further tourism, but Central Province. One of the problems unfortunately we lack some very necessary confronting some areas within the Lower Central facilities one of which is a reliable, clean water Province is the loss of population. In Warren, for supply in the Pemberton area. Caravans in example, a contributing factor is that much farm increasing numbers from the Eastern States are land has been purchased by the Forests bringing tourists to the trout hatchery, and I Department and planted to softwoods. The believe we have a potential for a great deal more circumstances behind this were that rising costs development in the tourist industry down in that forced many off the land and they welcomed the area. opportunity to sell out to the Forests Department which, I must add, made the purchases on a very In the Collie area, a problem has been created fair basis. by a lack of foresight resulting in the under· capacity of water storage and inc reasing salinity. However, · there has been an unfortunate I am in full support of the moratorium imposed snowballing effect. Those still rema ining on their by the Government on further clearing in the properties are becoming more and more isolated, water catchment area. a factor which in itself could well hasten their own departure from the land. An underta king for the payme nt of compensation has been given in instances where The communities are thinning out and there is the restriction has resulted in hardship. However, a loss of revenue for local government authorities; I consider the Government should offer lo buy and, in turn, services are becoming more difficult back undeveloped land at a reasonable price, and more expensive to provide. The swelling which a property owner cannot now develop. This burden of diminishing population and an would relieve some people of the state of suspense increasing level of costs can only be alleviated by in which they find themselves because of the a Government. moritorium on clearing. I believe there are a number of ways in which a Collie has the potential for steady, continuing Government can assist. One is by allocating grant development in the coal and alumina industries. moneys to local shires. which have been The eastern side of Lower Central Province is disadvantaged in the way I have mentioned. well known for its production of stud stock, high However, it would be rather difficult for shires lo budget on this unless they have had notice quality wool, meat and grains. Fortunately, this a rea of the -State has now passed through the sufficiently in advance to allow them lo do so . . drought conditions experienced by the remainder Another way that a Government could assist of the State. In Wagin, we have the Pederick these shires is by encouraging industry within Engineering Works, which is the largest private those areas; a nd surely there must be a potential enterprise of this type outside the metropolita n for forest-associated enterprises, pa rticularly in area. It attracted a completely new places like Kirup, Donnybrook, or even Nannup. manufacturing industry to the area; but, here The encouragement of industry is a long-term again, the facilities which these works fostered in project, of course, but an immediate fillip could the area have now been lost, as that new industry 448 [COUNCIL] eventually had to move to the metropolitan area who were swept into this House on a crest of anti­ because of freight costs and communication socialist fervour throughout this State, and indeed problems. throughout the country. Finally, Mr President, may I say I am mindful The Hon. Lyla Elliott: Fixed boundaries! of the limitations on the public purse, and it will The Hon. G. E. MASTERS: At the last be my aim to ensure that Government election the voters showed that the Liberal Party expenditure of a supportive nature be so allocated and the National Country Party were very as to bring the best results for the people of popular, and we will continue to be popular for Western Australia. many years to come. I thank you. Mr President, and honourable The Hon. R. Thompson: Why don't you members for your indulgence during this brief acknowledge the rigged boundaries? address. I have pleasure in supporting the motion. The Hon. G. E. MASTERS: There is no such THE HON. G. E. MASTERS (West) [5.14 thing. I know beyond any shadow of doubt that p.m.): I rise for the first time this session to there are no rigged boundaries. If members congratulate you, Mr President, on your opposite look at the r:!sults of the last election appointment to the high office of President of the they will see that the Liberal Party and National House. It is a position I am sure you will hold Country Party candidates would have romped with great distinction and impartiality, and I am home whatever boundaries might have applied. certain you will enjoy it. We shall miss your contributions; however, I am sure your sense of The Hon. R. Thompson: Of course the humour will not be lost while you sit in the boundaries are rigged. President's Chair. My congratulations go also to The PRESiDENT: Order! the new Leader of the Government, the Hon. The Hon. G . C. MacKinnon: He is casting Graham MacKinnon, to the Hon. David aspersions on a judge. Wordsworth on his election to the Cabinet as Minister for Transport, and lo the Hon. fan The Hon. G. E. MASTERS: I am now sitting Medcalf on his appointment as Attorney-General. on a different side of the House. While I was sitting among~t the Opposition during _the last Further, I would like to congratulate the Hon. session, interjections were often made very softly. Des Dans for again being appointed to lead the Now that I am over here it is possible for the Opposition in this House. I congratulate the Hon. Hansard reporter to hear these interjections. Robert Hetherington who has gained a position on the front bench at his first entry into We have heard the word "conservative" used in Parliament. I am sure we will hear a great deal this House on a number of occasions in lhe last from him. week. I am a Liberal, and proud of it. If, by standing as a Liberal member and by attempting It is with sadness that we saw a number of members retire and particularly I would like to to uphold the traditions of this House as well as mention my former colleague, the Hon. Roy the freedoms and rights of the individuals in this Abbey. Roy Abbey served for many years in this State I am labelled a conservative, I am quite House. Although he was quiet, and possibly did happy to accept the tag. Members opposite may not speak often, he was a very sincere and genuine do that as frequently as they like. man. It was my privilege to serve with him and to In the past Opposition members have squirmed have him as my co-representative of the West under the term "socialist". Mr Hetherington now Province. states he is a democratic socialist. This is an I would like to mention again the Hon. Jack interesting new label and no doubt we will hear Heitman. I extend my sincere condolences to his those words very often in the future. wife and his family. The Hon. Margaret McAleer Needless to say, Opposition members are ably expressed the thoughts of all members in obviously left-wingers, otherwise they would not relation lo our former colleague, and I completely hold their positions and operate as puppets of endorse her remarks. Trades Hall. As long as we realise the true I would like lo congratulate the new members situation, we will not be misled by anything they in this House, and in particular, my new say. I do not want to be controversial tonight, so I colleague, the Hon. Neil Oliver, who will be intend to dwell on a subject that affects my serving with me for many years to come. We both electorate, and particularly, some of the intend to stay here for a long time. In the main businessmen in my electorate. It affects also the other new members arc members of the members of the trade union movement and Liberal Party and the National Country Party members of the public. I refer to the dispute This is an interview with Winifred Piesse for the Battye Library Oral History Unit and the Western Australian Parliamentary Oral History Project. The interview was recorded in Mount Pleasant by Gail O'Hanlon on 29 November 1996.

GO'H Could you tell me your full name, please?

PIESSE Winifred Margaret Piesse - P I E S S E.

GO'H And your maiden name?

PIESSE Aumann - A U M A N N.

GO'H And where and when were you born?

PIESSE I was born in our house in Narre Warren, Victoria, which is 25 miles east of Melbourne. When I was born there in our house it was all small farms and orchards; now it's all bitumen and brick and tile and traffic lights, which grieves me rather. That's progress, of course, but when I'm talking to my grandchildren they always ask me, "Tell me about when you were a little girl", and I think, oh, I'll take them one day and show them the old stable and I'll show them the pine tree. Oh, I can't. It's not there, of course. It's not there. It's all streets and houses now so they will never see it. We do have some photographs but there's no way I can take them back to see it.

GO'H And your date of birth?

PIESSE 12 June 1923. I was the second child. I had a brother two-and-a­ half years older than me. His name was Cyril and he was on HMAS Sydney, so he was lost just before he turned 21 during the war. I have a younger sister who's seven years younger than me, and she is Phyllis - likes to be called Phil - and she lives up here. She was on the music staff at Edith Cowan but she's retired now.

GO'H And is Narre Warren where you grew up?

PIESSE Yes. I went to the state school in Narre Warren. We lived on an orchard-cum-small farm, so we were in the country although it was only 25 miles from Melbourne, but it was country then and we had all the usual things, you know, cows, fowls, horses; not many sheep - pet sheep now and again, that's all. Didn't know anything about sheep when I was married. I went to state school in Narre Warren, and then in Victoria in those days after the sixth grade you went to high school. So I went to the Dandenong High School, which again is ever so much bigger now than it was when I went. We used to go in on the train, catch the train at twenty-past-seven in the morning and we'd get home at half-past-five in the afternoon. Then we had a-mile-and-a-half from the railway station to walk home, but because it was a long time from when school closed (though school only ended about a quarter-past-four, I think) we had a little time to do homework if we had to do it. We didn't have to bring it home; we could do it at the school before we walked down to the railway. There was a fair bit of TAPE ONE SIDE A PIESSE 2 walking involved, where children don't do that today. They're picked up at gateways by buses and at the school by bus and home by bus, but we had quite [a walk]. It must have been over a mile from the high school down to the railway station in Dandenong, and when we got home we had a-mile-and-a-half to walk home again. So it was good exercise.

GO'H The orchard that your family had, did it have a name and what size holding was it?

PIESSE It wasn't very big. It was 40 acres (I don't know what that is in hectares) and it was about average for there. It was a returned serviceman's block. My father was wounded in the First World War and after the war he married my mother and they settled on the orchard. We had apples and pears, a few stone fruits for ourselves but it was apples and pears that we exported in those days.

GO'H Did it have a name?

PIESSE Greenford - G RE EN F 0 RD.

GO'H Do you know why your parents called it that, or your father called it that?

PIESSE I don't actually know why, or whether it was called that when he came into it, but I can imagine it could have been because he came from up Murtoa way where only a short time it was green up there, because, of course, that's a wheat area and Narre Warren was always green. Yes, so it was lovely country.

GO'H And the house on the property, could you just give me a brief description of the type of house?

PIESSE Yes. A small wooden weatherboard and iron house. We had three bedrooms, a lounge/dining room, a kitchen, those sort of things, and of course in those days the laundry was out away from the house - not very far, of course, but across the yard to the laundry - across the yard to the toilet, cross the yard [laughs] to wherever, and all different now, of course. No-one thought that was primitive in those days. That's the way we were just after the First World War. Of course, I was a bit after that, you see, because I was born in '23, but Mother and Dad were married in 1920 and he hadn't been all that long home from the war when they were married, and people did appreciate things that they had, I think, a good deal more than they do today. Certainly it was only a weatherboard cottage but we had carpets on the floor and decent furniture. I always say my father gave his children their sense of humour and my mother put the polish on. [laughs]

GO'H Where did your family sell their orchard-grown fruit to? TAPE ONE SIDE A PIESSE 3

PIESSE Well, in those days you sold it through an agent and it was exported largely to Europe, and when we were kids at school (before we went to high school because it was too late when we got home after that) when we'd come home from school often our job was to stencil the cases, the wooden boxes the fruit was in, and it was going to Liverpool in England or to Hull or to Hamburg and all those places. The agent would have told my father he needed so many whatever, and when they were all boxed up my father would load them up onto the wagon or the lorry with two horses in the lorry, and drive down the mile-and-a-half to the railway station where they were put on the train down to the ship, and they were shipped off to these places, which made for great dreaming for children, having learnt where these places were in our geography at school. I don't know whether children do learn as much geography now as we used to, but we knew a lot about other countries, and, of course, my father having been in Europe in during the war, he was a great one for telling .... if you asked him things he would never laugh at you or ridicule, he would tell you. We would ask him things and we never realised we were learning things.

GO'H Can we talk a little bit more about your family? First of all your father - his full name, date of birth if you know it.

PIESSE He was Frederick Benjamin Aumann, one of 15 or 17 children. There's a whole story in itself of the Aumann family. My great grandfather, my father's grandfather, came out from Germany way back in the time of Wilhelm Ill because - and this is probably irrelevant to you .... We've just had a big reunion a few years ago and we got all this information, which we vaguely knew but a relative went back and checked it all out in Silesia in Germany, and Wilhelm Ill had decided he would write the litany for the churches. He wasn't going to have anything to do with this Lutheran nonsense. He would write the litany and everybody would worship as he said, and great grandfather Aumann said that was not for him and his family, he would go to this new country. So he sent his eldest son out for a start and within the year he followed with his other four sons, I think. He had one daughter. His wife had died and he had one daughter of his own and he had a housekeeper, whom he married. She had a daughter and they all came out and his own daughter came a year later. One of those sons was my grandfather. The other sons settled around the Doncaster Templestowe area in Victoria and my grandfather went up to near Murtoa in a covered wagon. Of course, he married my grandmother [first]. She was Polish. I didn't know her. Well, I did but I was only two-and-a-half when she died. My grandfather had died long before that on Dad's side. They went up in this covered wagon and her first two children, the first two of the 17, were born in the covered wagon because he had to clear the land and get producing something, at least fruit and vegetables so they could eat. He was a fairly remarkable man. There was no way of preserving anything in those days, of course, and so he dug a cellar. There wasn't too much in the way of tools for digging cellars but he dug this cellar, which is there to this day. Nobody lives in the old home now but it's there to this day. In order for a draft to go through so things wouldn't go mouldy he arranged that with pipes out and little windmills on them - you know, TAPE ONE SIDE A PIESSE 4 little turn things - and it still would function if anyone was there and they were able to keep their (they had a cow) milk and butter and so forth down there.

I am told that grandmother took up with her a hen with the sitting of eggs. Must have had a rooster too, I suppose, because the fox got most of the first lot of chickens and she'd built on from there. They were very much horticultural people and my grandmother had always, in later years, a lovely garden.

They first of all built two rooms, wattle and daub, and then that was still there. When I was a child I remember that as being the laundry, these two rooms, and then the main kitchen area was built, and then across an airway the other rooms of the house - the parlour and the other bedrooms. And with all these children, there were big sheds, and the boys in particular slept in the lofts and the lofts were still there when I was a child.

But Grandmother Aumann was very strict. They lived something like five or six miles from Murtoa and she would walk in to church along the railway line. They were very religious in that way - not what is known today as Bible bangers, but a very deep faith, and this no doubt was inherited from my great grandfather because after he came out here and settled at Doncaster, one of the first things he set about doing was building a Lutheran church. He's known around Doncaster as Father Aumann because they were some of the earliest ones settling there and he is always remembered for his work with the church. None of them were ministers. I think there are some ministers in the family - now, I know there are, but I don't really know them; I met them at the reunion. But they were people of great faith and very much into the growing of things and the laws of nature, very much so, and my father, too, yes. So, do you want any more about them?

GO'H Yes. I was wondering, do you know when your father was born, about?

PIESSE 1885 - 26 August 1885.

GO'H And you say he moved to Narre Warren after the war. Do you know why he picked that particular area?

PIESSE I think because he'd been up in the wheat area, which then was a very hard life. I know farming people are always dependant on the weather, for one thing, and you remember that during and after the First World War many people had to walk off their properties because they just simply could not make a living - things were very, very hard. When he married my mother he had put in for a soldier settlement block, as they were referred to, and he asked to come down in the south a bit, thinking that that would be a better proposition, which in fact it was for a time, though during the 1930s everybody suffered when I was growing up. There wasn't any money. Nobody had any money, and selling our fruit, a lot of it couldn't be sold. There was no market, and it was just tipped out TAPE ONE SIDE A PIESSE 5 in great heaps. That happened twice during my childhood. The second time there were a lot of pears tipped out, down in what we call the stock paddock where we had the horses and a couple of cows, and one horse got diabetes from eating too many pears, because of the sugar, and the horse had to be put down. It was a very difficult time during the 1930s and, as I say, we were well established as far as our home went and we were never short of food and we were never cold, but we didn't have too many clothes.

I well remember sharing silk stockings with my mother. We had one pair between us. I mean, girls today wouldn't believe it, you know. And, of course, you always wore your stockings and your gloves and your hat. You never went out without those things, so when mother when out she wore the stockings and when I went out I wore the stockings, and they cost seven and elevenpence! [laughs] [Other than that we wore heavy lisle stockings.]

GO'H You've been talking about the Depression. How affluent was your family generally?

PIESSE Not affluent. Not affluent ever, not ever, not moneywise, but I felt we were very rich in family really, because, well, we were united, and I think that was the case of many families in those days. Looking back, I think one of the main things was that we all sat down to eat together, which people don't do today. We children, when it was a meal time, we automatically washed our hands and brushed our hair and came to the table. You wouldn't think of saying, "No, I'll have mine later," you know, "Oh, no, I want to go to wherever." No. It didn't happen. I was never a keen sportsperson. I did play tennis as soon as I was old enough, not with any great prowess at all, but enjoyment. My brother was very keen on his sport, both cricket and football and very good at it, but he would still have to come to meal time. If he had to walk into Narre Warren for a football match or whatever, the meal would be put on a little earlier so he would have time to go, but there was none of this "Well, he'll have his first and the rest of us will eat later." We ate together.

GO'H You mentioned that your father always listened to you and talked to you as children. Can you tell me a little bit more about his personality?

PIESSE Well, of course, he was very important to me in my life. He had a tremendous sense of humour. Mother didn't. He was well regarded in our little town. He was president of the school committee .... oh, on all sorts of things. He was one of the leading lights in the Progress Association when they built the returned servicemen's hall in Narre Warren, that sort of thing. I was only too little enough to know about it. I remember the hall - I think it's still there; in fact, it is still there - where all the functions were held. He was one of the chief ones on that committee. He took an active part in the district but it was a very small district. He didn't have a lot of money. He could never go making great big donations because he simply didn't have it, but anything he could give of himself to the district improvement, he gave. Mother did, too, in her way but she was TAPE ONE SIDE A PIESSE 6 much more reticent, more shy. For instance, my father loved dancing, and when I grew up this was a great help to me. Mother was always terribly self-conscious about dancing. He was a mason and they would have functions, and Mother was always in a great dither when she had to go to an evening and support him, anything like that, she was in a great state about it. My father would just love the dancing and he'd enter into whatever was going.

I remember one time, I was half-grown, I suppose, and there was a fancy dress dance in Dandenong and Mother refused point blank to go in any sort of fancy dress. It was the time when Haile Selassie was carrying on in Abyssinia .... which, we used to learn these things because they were discussed at the table, things in the paper. Not who was sleeping with who, like there is today, [laughs] but things happening in the world. Dad always read the paper and Mother read the paper too and discussed things, so we knew that Haile Selassie was cutting up over there, and my father went to this [dance] as Haile Selassie and Mother flatly refused to have anything to do with it. So Dad got himself some chaff bags, you know, the chaff bags were loose hessian stuff, and he dyed them himself and made his outfit himself [laughs] to go, and he made some sort of a cardboard headgear and blackened his face and he got a prize. Of course, we had photographs in the paper, you see. Everyone knew he was Haile Selassie at the ball and he got a prize.

I remember when he came home from the ball and, of course, the next morning we kids wanted to know all about it and Mother said, "Oh, I was ashamed of him going in that rig-out," and Dad said there was only one woman made any remark against it, and he was dancing with her and she said, "I really don't like the smell of your outfit!" [laughs] I could well understand why because he'd dyed this chaff bag. But, you know, he just took that all in his stride and laughed about it and we all laughed about it, but Mother was just embarrassed. But she came from a different walk of life altogether.

GO'H Could we now have a little bit of information about your mother - her full name and date of birth and her family background?

PIESSE She was Marguerette Gertrude Pettingill. She was born in Drouin actually. Her father had a crippled foot, I suppose you would say, sort of a club foot. He wasn't born with it. Something went wrong with it when he was a boy, so he was always lame. At first I'm told he was a bootmaker. His father, who had been a publican .... no, not a publican you wouldn't say - he kept boarding houses anyway, and he had said, "Well, this boy would not be able to go on the land." He also had a farm, my grandfather's father had a farm, Mum's grandfather. He said that Fred (he was Fred, too) would never be able to go on the land because of this foot and he must learn a trade. So he had him taught bootmaking, which he hated, thinking no doubt that with this crippled foot it would be handy to make his own boots [laughs]. TAPE ONE SIDE A PIESSE 7

Anyway, they were in Druin, and then Mother was born there and her sister, and then they moved to Port Fairy in Victoria, in the western end of Victoria. I believe they had a fruit shop there, which Grandma who was a real bundle of energy, that little Grandma; she was only four foot eight, but she was one of those energetic little women. They ran the fruit shop but in between times he did night school study and became the town clerk. That was a very good position in those days. He was the town clerk in Port Fairy for many, many years and they had a nice little home down there and they had two more children there. One died of tuberculosis, the youngest girl, but there was the eldest one, my Auntie Nell, then my mother, and then the brother, who was also called Cyril, and Auntie Evelyn who died. She died after I was born. I didn't ever know her. But that's where they lived.

Where Dad had been taken to the Lutheran church, you know, with all these children, you can imagine there wasn't too much cash around. People didn't spend up like they do today. They gave donations to things but they didn't seem to need so many, so much paraphernalia around them. Well, I suppose it wasn't available, really. Dad had gone to church, and of course he went to school and had quite a reasonable education. Mother was in the church choir, a lovely singing voice, and she and her mother and her brother all sang in the choir for years in Port Fairy. My grandfather, Mother's father, being an office worker, you see, it was quite different, and living in a town, and I think that also had something to do with Dad putting in for an orchard because he felt that she was too delicate in a way, I suppose. She was not delicate but, you know [laughs], it would be too much of a shock for her to go up and have to rough it in the wheatbelt at that time. People have nicer houses than that now but they didn't then.

GO'H Do you know your mother's date of birth?

PIESSE 2 January 1895. She was just ten years younger than my father.

GO'H And how did your parents meet?

PIESSE Well, Dad had just come back from the war and he was share farming in places or working about. This was before he got the block. He was up at, I think it was Wodonga, I'm not sure whether it was Wodonga but I think it was up that way, and a friend of Mother's or an aunt of Mother's ran a hotel up there and Mother went up to stay with her and met up with a woman she had known a long time ago, went to school with, I think, who was now married up there, you see, and this friend said, "Oh, there's these Aumann boys have just come home from the war. You must come in and you must meet them", and that's how it came about they met.

I believe my father had been engaged prior to going to the war and when he came back there was a big bust up and nobody really knew why except Dad and the girl concerned apparently. Dad's sisters used to try to get it out of my TAPE ONE SIDE A PIESSE 8 mother, "What happened? Why did that break up? Mother said, "It's no good asking me. I have no idea!" [laughs] She wasn't going to ask Dad. [laughs] So that's how they met. She was very pretty, a very lovely looking woman, very handsome, and he just idolised her, you know, and thought, well, he couldn't take her up into the wheatbelt, that would never do, so that's where they lived.

GO'H Do you know where their marriage took place?

PIESSE Yes. They were married in Port Fairy. Mother was only holidaying up in Wodonga, you see, and they were married in the Anglican church in Port Fairy where Mother had sung in the choir all those years. They went to Sydney for their honeymoon, because Mother's brother was in Sydney. He was with, oh, Mark Foy's or Burns Philp. Mark Foy's, I think in that time. Anyway, he was in business, that sort of thing.

GO'H I was wondering if you could also tell me a little bit about Narre Warren as a community, the sort of size and facilities it had as you were growing up?

PIESSE Well, it wasn't any size, [laughs] but we thought we had enough things. We had a school, which is still there to this day, we had two grocery shops and a butcher, and the butchers in those days, you went in and there was sawdust on the floor and a big chopping block and everything hung up on hooks, and you said, "I'll have a piece of steak off that" [laughs] It was all very healthy, you know, it really was. I can remember taking my youngest son, who was very passionately fond of sausages, and that butcher shop must have still been there then when I was married. Charlie was born in 1952. Yes, it would be about 1954 and he was only two and we were over there, and Mother took him with her and he saw all these sausages hanging up in the butcher shop - he was ecstatic! [laughing] He'd never seen so many sausages! So that butcher's shop was there a long, long time. We had a baker. I think that's about all the business that was there, yes. And you see, in those days, the grocers, they sold chaff and wheat and all those things as well. It was a general set-to but one of the shops was quite up market. It was a later job - brick and iron - but the original one was corrugated iron, and that was still corrugated iron. Now there's a big shopping area there, but it was a corrugated iron shed then. A very good business, and you went up steps to a platform, wooden steps (no handrail, of course) to a platform and then you slid this corrugated iron door (like a shearing shed) to go into the shop. Very primitive but it worked. [laughs].

And the railway station! Of course, we had the train going through. We had no electricity at all but I can remember the stationmaster or whoever was on duty going along and lighting the lights along the platform when the train was due to come in, and going along and putting them out again when the train had gone in. They were those sort of tin lights with glasses on each, glass around them. That was the lighting. There was no power, not for years. We had a coolstore. That was built during my father's time. He was instrumental, like he was one on TAPE ONE SIDE A PIESSE 9 the committee getting that going, and after that was built, in between times fruit was stored there and you packed it out from the coolstore. When I got a bit older I did pack fruit out of there.

We used to love to go down with Dad. We'd take our lunch and go all day if we were getting fruit to send away, and always Mother packed us up a very nice lunch. Great cook, my mother, a very good cook. We always took a bottle of cold coffee, and this was a great luxury. You used to get brandy in I suppose they were half gallon flasks or something. It was a particular shape bottle, a flat sort of a bottle, and always the coffee was put in this - I think because it had a screw top, but it also laid very comfortably in the coolstore chamber. The cool pipes went right around, as you can imagine, and this flat bottle of coffee,when we first went down that was put first thing in the cool chamber so that there was iced coffee when we got it for lunch. It was a great thing because we had no means of making any ice; the coldest water you got would be out of a waterbag.

END OF TAPE ONE SIDE A

Countryman Thursday 23/3/2017 Brief: PARLWA-WA1 Page: 20 Section: General News Region: Perth Circulation: 6,018 Type: Rural Size: 113.00 sq.cms. Frequency: ---T---

Winnifred’s lasting legacy Tributes have poured in for the late Union and St John Ambulance. family farm in her own right, as the Winifred Piesse, the first woman to Nationals deputy leader Mia first woman to serve on the Wagin represent the Country Party in Davies said Ms Piesse would be Shire Council as a Shire Councillor State Parliament. remembered as a hardworking and and as a Justice of the Peace.” The well-known Wagin identity passionate Member of Parliament, Ms Piesse was the only female was elected to the WA Legislative and for her tireless advocacy in member of the joint Liberal Council in 1977 and served for a six- health, education, children and Country Party Room at the time year term in the Lower Central youth affairs on behalf of the she entered Parliament. Province. community. “Win showed that women can be After leaving Parliament, she “A nurse, midwife, farmer and both strong leaders and successful remained committed to the com- Member of Parliament — Win in public life,” Ms Davies said. munity, serving on the local hospi- embodied The Nationals’ strong tal board, and maintaining her values and fighting spirit,” she association with the Country said. “She wasn’t afraid to chal- Women’s Association, Farmer’s lenge convention, having run the

The late Winifred Piesse, of Wagin.

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