WOMEN OF AUSTRALIA

Wairarapa Times-Age, 20 November 1943, Page 4

WOMEN OF AUSTRALIA

CONFERENCE IN SYDNEY MOST REPRESENTATIVE' YET HELD. PROBLEMS OF HOUSING AND HEALTH. (By Telegraph—Press Association —Copyright) (Received This Day, 11.15 a.m.) SYDNEY, This Day. More than 200 delegates are attending an Australian Women’s Conference, the most representative gathering of women’s organisations yet held in the Commonweatlh. Fourteen trades unions are included among the 71 organisations from all States represented at the conference. One of the speakers, Dr. Hilda Bull, Assistant Medical Officer in Melbourne, said it was recognised that poverty was the prime cause of ill-health. “A children’s hospital is a monument to the failure of the community to provide a decent living standard for a majority of its best citizens,” she declared.

The conference ,at its opening session ,discussed Australia’s acute housing shortage. Mrs Evatt, wife of the Minister of External Affairs, emphasised the value of the co-operation of women architects in planning post-wai reconstruction, which must embody the fundamental need of the home for every Australian family. Women spent so many hours daily in the kitchen that one of the first aims of home architecture should be to make it a place of comfort and charm. Resolutions arising out of the conference will be embodied in a suggested Women’s Charter.