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QUESTION: 1974 battered women's shelters in Australia?

Submitted by Anonymooose on Thu, 05/01/2008 - 3:35pm
question / pregunta: 

In reviewing the life of Anne Summers, one of the members of Women's Liberation in Sydney, Australia, journalist Anna Reynolds states that Elsie (which Summers helped establish from a formerly-abandoned house in 1974) was the first battered women's shelter in Australia.

In 1974, members of the Women's Liberation Movement in Melbourne established the Halfway House, a shelter for battered women and their children.

How can I verify whether Elsie was indeed Australia's first battered women's shelter or whether Halfway House (or another shelter) was already in existence by the time Summers and her fellow Women Libbers opened Elsie?

Answers

Answer posted by: jbeek

The Australian Government's Office for Women provides policy information for the Executive branch. Among the research resources on their site can be found a report from WESNET (Women's Services Network) (also accessible from WESNET's research page) that includes a history of Australian women's shelters.
On page 50 of WESNET: Women’s Refuges, Shelters, Outreach and
Support Services in Australia we find:

They have come a long way from Elsie, the Sydney squat which claims its place as Australia’s first ‘official’ contemporary white women’s women’s refuge, or Women’s Liberation Halfway House which opened later in 1974 in Melbourne.

So the Halfway House shouldn't have been in existence when Elsie opened.

(Thanks to Astra for the comment that supplies the research for this answer)
#1Submitted by astra on Sat, 05/03/2008 - 11:17pm.

Australia

I found a report called WESNET: Women’s Refuges, Shelters, Outreach and
Support Services in Australia. On page 50, it says: "They have come a long way from Elsie, the Sydney squat which claims its place as Australia’s first ‘official’ contemporary white women’s women’s refuge, or Women’s Liberation Halfway House which opened later in 1974 in Melbourne." So the Halfway House shouldn't have been in existence when Elsie opened.
Here is a link to the report:
http://www.ofw.facsia.gov.au/downloads/pdfs/WESNET_report.pdf

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