Speeches
Monday, 03 November 2025
Reception for Augusta Zadow Awards
Rod and I warmly welcome you all to Government House for the presentation of the 2025 Augusta Zadow Awards.
Founded in 2005, this year we mark the 20th anniversary of the awards – a fine achievement.
As Governor, gender equality is one of my priority areas.
I am heartened to see the commitment of individuals and organisations who identify needs in our workplaces and step up to address them.
It would be difficult to find a person who embodied this commitment more than Augusta Zadow, a German immigrant who arrived in South Australia in 1877.
Augusta became a powerful advocate for women working in clothing factories and was instrumental in establishing the Working Women's Trades Union in 1890.
An outspoken supporter of women's suffrage, following the enfranchisement of women in South Australia in 1894, she was appointed by Premier Charles Kingston as the state's First Lady Inspector of Factories in 1895.
In her book 'In Her Own Name: A History of Women in South Australia since 1836', my late aunt, historian Helen Jones, wrote of our state’s many women reformers, including Augusta Zadow.
Common themes emerge: these women exhibited perseverance and resilience, maintained non-partisan approaches, and understood that remedies for social ills lay in long-term solutions backed by public opinion and based in law.
A quote from the preface:
“At the time of South Australia’s Centenary in 1936, Dr Helen Mayo, a prominent medical practitioner and the second woman to gain a medical degree from the University of Adelaide, said:
South Australia has been fortunate in its citizens, both men and women, who took the long view, who built up for the future, and who gave of themselves unsparingly for the common good.”
Today’s award recipients join this proud tradition of South Australian pioneers, advancing the “common good” of women, and young workers, in our state.
I congratulate recipients on the initiatives for which they receive funding.
These include developing culturally safe workplace health and safety induction for Aboriginal construction workers, examining the intersection of shift work and menopause, and raising awareness to reduce electric shock incidents.
Each project will make an important contribution to improving the safety and wellbeing of South Australian women and young workers, now and into the future.
Friends,
I thank SafeWork SA for its dedication to coordinating these awards and for its ongoing commitment to workplace health and safety.
Congratulations once again to our recipients.
Through your efforts you honour the remarkable legacies of Augusta and Zadow and other prominent historical figures, ensuring that workplaces continue to evolve, that barriers are dismantled, and that the rights and wellbeing of all workers are protected and advanced.