Since Queensland's separation from New South Wales in 1859, Queensland parliamentarians were elected on the “plural” or “property" vote. The amount of property a man owned determined how many votes he had; a wealthy squatter could have up to a dozen votes. A controversial and divisive issue for the women's suffrage movement was whether women wanted the vote on the same conditions as men (i.e. propertied women having more than one vote), or whether they were seeking, as did the Labor Party, abolition of the property vote.

Some of the men in Parliament were propertied, and no doubt had friends and voters in their electorates who were also propertied. So the thought that women's franchise could mean an end to their plural voting privileges caused some of these men to campaign against or sabotage Bills which were tabled to secure women's suffrage. Many also thought women unworthy of the vote.

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photo : Shev Armstrong