In brief

• There is a new sculpture of Susan Ryan AO in the Old Parliament House Senate Rose Gardens.

• Susan Ryan AO was the first female Senator for the ACT and a women’s rights trailblazer.

• The sculpture is by artist Lis Johnson.

The late Honourable Susan Ryan AO has been honoured with a new sculpture. The sculpture is by artist Lis Johnson and is at the Old Parliament House Senate Rose Gardens.

Susan Ryan AO (1942-2020) was a Senator from 1975 until 1988. She was also:

• the first female Senator for the ACT

• the first woman in a federal Labor Cabinet in 1983

• the first woman in a federal Labor Cabinet in 1983.

One of her many achievements was the introduction and passage of world leading legislation. This legislation was to:

• prevent discrimination based on sex, marital status, or pregnancy

• guard against harassment

• dismantle barriers in the workplace.

The sculpture was funded by the ACT Government as part of the Recognising Significant Women Through Public Art program. The ACT Government introduced this program to begin to address the imbalance in gender representation in the ACT Public Art Collection. The program also promotes female or gender-diverse artists through the commissioning process.

The artist selected to create the sculpture, Lis Johnson, is a fine art figurative sculptor. Lis is based in rural Victoria and is highly regarded for her portraits and figurative memorials.

“It was an honour to be chosen to portray Senator Susan Ryan – a truly worthy subject and a great role model,” Lis said.

“An effective parliamentarian, she campaigned for and introduced important legislation, and from my research I got the impression she stayed true to her values, rising above partisan and factional squabbles.”

The sculpture is titled ‘Senator Ryan Addresses the Rally’. It is inspired by a photo of Susan addressing a women’s work rally in 1977. The sculpture has been positioned in the gardens to allow for people to gather in front of the work. People can interact with it and sit on the garden bed beside it.

“We visited different parts of Canberra looking at locations for the statue, and I realised the Rose Gardens was perfect,” Susan Ryan’s daughter, Justine Butler said.

Susan Ryan’s office was on the senate side of Old Parliament House. Justine recalls spending a lot of time there with her brother as children.

“I know children on excursions to Canberra regularly flock to the Rose Gardens. I hope that when they walk past the statue of our mother, it will evoke many questions about Susan Ryan – they will ask ‘Who was she? What did she achieve? What was her life like as a young woman in parliament?’ I also hope this statue will see people more broadly reflect on the place of women in Australian politics."

This week, the ACT Heritage Library is marking the 40^th anniversary of the commencement of the Sex Discrimination Act and the occasion of the unveiling. The library is displaying some of its Susan Ryan AO archival material, including:

• her autobiography

• photographs

• how-to-vote cards for the 1975 and 1980 Federal Elections.

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