Empowering women to have a strong voice

DULCIE Corbett’s philosophy is that if you educate and empower a woman, you educate and empower a family.

Her desire to do so led her to become the first female president of the Ballarat Trades and Labour Council in 1989 and a member of the community who continuously advocated for women in trade unions.

For these contributions, Ms Corbett is being inducted into the Zonta Club of Ballarat’s Great Women Honour Roll.

“I thought of it as recognition for women to become president because I had stood for it once before, and someone had sort of said they were supporting me, but in fact they were organising another male candidate,” she said.

“But this time I beat them and I knew that sometimes they don’t play by the rules or interpret the rules as being male-oriented.”

One of Ms Corbett’s proudest memories is when she helped women working at a local motel receive fair pay more than 30 years ago.

“I can distinctly remember the first time I actually got an employer to agree that I could have a meeting of all staff, because that was something we could have under the award, but they made it very difficult,” she said.

“I found that everyone working there were working mums, with children. Some of them had been working there for 20 years and didn’t know the award wage.

“It ended up that we settled that, and they got their right amount of pay, but not only that, I then went and worked out how much they were owed, and they were owed a lot of money.”

Ms Corbett’s work extends beyond advocating for women in trade unions.

She has also helped women in the community escape domestic violence, assisted people in finding safe housing and aided women in becoming active in politics.

Although Ms Corbett’s capabilities were often misjudged, by the end of her career local hospitality bosses knew she meant business.

She never lost an Australian Hotels Association case and when she retired, one local hotel threw a party to celebrate.

“The head of the AHA in Ballarat…he said ‘We are having a party tonight, and the party is because you are retiring,’ and we laughed about that.”