Social History in Southern NSW

This section of the website contains a few of the stories written while I was a journalist on an Eastern Riverina Observer, based in Henty but also covering the towns of Lockhart, Culcairn, Walla Walla, Urana, Boree Creek, Yerong Creek, and other hamlets in between. Mostly, I've picked pieces that record interesting women's lives.

Dorothy Ross AM: trying to retire

by Natalie Bennett

Following a career in the grass roots of rural politics spanning three decades, perhaps Australia's best known rural woman, Dorothy Ross, claims she has no ambition to "do big things any more".

The former CWA Australia President was granted the highest honour possible in the this year's Australia Day Honours List, when she was made a member of the General Division of the Order of Australia (AM).

Miss Ross has retired from active positions in the CWA and has sold most of the farming property she developed and ran for 30 years.

But she retains interests in many organisations, including the Press Council of Australia, the school board of Frensham and the Holbrook Community Education Centre.

Today she prefers to devote her time to reading and bushwalking.

But as always. Miss Ross has strong opinions on a broad range of issues, and is often consulted by those looking for a rural woman's viewpoint.

Despite her forthright stance on a variety of issues, she professes to be surprised at being described in a local newspaper as a "women's right campaigner".

"I have never thought of myself that way. I have fought for better conditions for rural women, but you can't get that without also gaining better conditions for rural men and children."

Miss Ross said she was out of sympathy with those women's rights campaigners who wanted affirmative actions to advance the place of women in public life.

"I am a great admirer of women and women's brains. I believe they can make their own way to the top.

"It is belittling to suggest a certain number of places should be reserved for women."

She says she never personally experienced discrimination, even though she began operating a farm in her own right 30 years ago, when farming was "very much a man's world".

Miss Ross supports women in all tiers of government. "But I doubt if there will be a female Prime Minister in my lifetime. Australia, and the political system, is built on male mateship."

Miss Ross stood for the Senate as a Country Party candidate in 1975 and 1977, but resigned from the party when she became CWA National President, and has not rejoined.

She believes there should be one conservative and one non- conservative party in Australia.

"It is a terrible waste of resources to have two conservative parties. "Before it changed its name, the Country Party really was the party for country people, but since it decided to try to win city seats it is not quite the same.

"The single party won't come from an amalgamation of the Liberals and National Party, there are too many hard-nosed people in each party who will never give an inch - I am talking about a fresh start, which historically has happened from time to time.

"I think it will probably evolve if there is not a change of government at the next election."

Miss Ross said she is "sad" that politicians are held in such poor esteem in Australia.

"While they bring a lot of ridicule upon them- selves, I don't think this attitude is all their fault. It makes it hard for good decisions to be made.

"For fifty per cent of our lives we are governed by NSW and the rest of the time by the Commonwealth. Half of the time you don't know which one to appeal to.

"I would abolish the states and invest more in local government. But it will never happen. The States will never give up their sovereignty."

Even in her quieter times, walking through the bush, issues are never far from Miss Ross's thoughts. Walking along the Murray, Miss Ross is saddened to see so much land given over to pine plantations and is concerned about the environmental implications of the plantings.

"They are cold, uninteresting things. 'But I sympathise with the need of people to sell their properties. If they can find no other buyer for the property than the Forestry Commission, then it is their right to sell.

"This is a free country; there is already quite enough government interference."

Miss Ross said she believed the same argument applied when the discussion of foreign ownership of Australian land arose. "What do we say to Australians who can find no Australian buyer - 'Sorry, you just have to go broke'?.

"I wish it didn't have to happen, but if you look at the big companies and banks, they are often overseas owned. We have to live on other countries' money because our population is so small."

Despite the current economic climate. Miss Ross has confidence in the long term future of Australia. "The situation does look grim but then the bottom always falling out of the market for some rural commodity or another.

"Unfortunately each time a lot of people don't recover. All we can do hope it won't be us."

Miss Ross believes in social life, commonsense is starting to prevail. "There is a return to what used to be called old fashioned values - framework of law and order is beginning to prevail. "We have been through a very selfish, self seeking period, but the fall of the entrepreneurs has been sobering for a lot of people. "I believe we are now heading in the right direction."

From the Eastern Riverina Observer, February 7, 1990