Speeches
Friday, 25 October 2024
Augusta Zadow 2024 Awards Reception
I am delighted to welcome you to Government House for the 2024 Augusta Zadow awards, in National SafeWork Month.
As Governor, I am constantly inspired by those in the community who recognise a need and are prepared to step up and work for change.
It would be hard to find a person who more fits this description than Augusta Zadow, a German migrant who arrived in South Australia with her husband and young son in 1877.
As will be well known to many of you here, Augusta became an advocate for women working in clothing factories and was a major contributor to the establishment of the Working Women’s Trades Union in 1890.
An outspoken supporter of women’s suffrage, following the enfranchisement of women in South Australia, she was appointed by the then Premier Charles Kingston as the state’s first lady Inspector of Factories in 1895 to monitor working conditions for women and children.
Augusta inspected, without time off, the working conditions of 400 factories, but died suddenly within 16 months, possibly from a work-related illness.
She was held in such esteem that her gravestone in Adelaide’s West Terrace Cemetery, was constructed with one thousand threepenny subscriptions from factory workers.
The simple inscription says so much: “Self-denying efforts on behalf of the struggling and oppressed.”
Undoubtedly, Augusta was a woman ahead of her time, who fighting for the work health and safety rights of women and young workers that we take for granted today.
Today we mark the 20th year of these awards, which support and encourage initiatives that improve the health and safety of women and young workers in South Australia.
I thank SafeWork SA for co-ordinating the awards and the assessment panel for their diligence in assessing and selecting the winners.
To the finalists, thank you for your important contributions to the safety and wellbeing of women and young people in the workforce – two groups which traditionally have been under-represented.
The awards are testament not only to your own efforts, but also to Augusta Zadow’s remarkable legacy, which has endured for more than 125 years.
While we have come a long way, through her, we are reminded that we must always seek ways to improve workplaces and ensure opportunity.
Thank you for being part of that effort.