Integrity. Passion. Experience. Diligence. Drive. Creativity.

Our barristers and consultants share a passion for fairness, social justice, and equality. They believe that what wins a case is hard work, insight, creativity, energy, enthusiasm, and caring about making a difference. Inspired by the life and work of Lady Jessie Street, we named our virtual Chambers after a significant Australian who made such a positive difference to the lives of so many.

So, who was Jessie Street?

Lady Jessie Mary Grey Street (1889-1970) was an Australian feminist, community worker, and human rights activist. She married (Sir) Kenneth Street, a barrister, on 10 February 1916 in Sydney, NSW. He later became Chief Justice of NSW. Jessie Street was elected president of the United Associations (later the United Associations of Women) in 1930. The UA became the NSW branch of the Australian Federation of Women Voters (AFWV), which was founded by Australia's leading Australian feminist, Bessie Rischbieth, in 1921, to give women a voice nationally and internationally. The overriding objective of the AFWV was 'real equality' of status and opportunity—an end to discrimination against women in the workplace, in law, or in appointment to public office, as a consequence of marriage or motherhood. The welfare of children and the promotion of international peace were associated aims.

A woman's right to economic independence was a cause Street made her own. It encompassed a right to income for married women, a right to paid employment regardless of marital status, a right to compete alongside men in the labour market, equal pay, and just remuneration of skills. Street argued that equal pay was just, and would eliminate the pool of cheap female labour which 'continually menaces the employment of men and the standards of living of all workers'. This was especially the case where technology was changing the nature of work. Last century, the UA briefed counsel to appear in equal-pay cases brought by the Federated Clerks' Union of Australia and the Shop Assistants' Union of NSW.

Visiting Vienna in the late 1930s, Street was deeply saddened to see first-hand, the way that Nazis treated Jewish people. Street advocated for the removal of restrictions on Jewish immigration to Palestine, and for an increased intake of Jewish refugees to Australia. She served on the Aliens Classification and Advisory Committee in 1944 and later on the Commonwealth Immigration Advisory Council. In 1945, Street was the only female adviser in the Australian delegation to the United Nations Conference on International Organization, held at San Francisco, USA. With other women, she secured the insertion of the word 'sex' in the clause 'without distinction as to race, sex, language or religion' wherever it occurs in the Charter of the United Nations.

Advised by Christian Jollie Smith, Street drafted an amendment to the Australian Constitution to remove discriminatory references to Aborigines. She met Aboriginal leaders, to whom she explained the constitutional proposals and the importance of national organization. Street’s suggested amendments to the Constitution were carried in the 1967 referendum.

Summarised from the Australian Dictionary of Biography, Street, Lady Jessie Mary (1889–1970), by Heather Radi.

Photograph: Jessie Street, by Falk Studios, 1930s, National Library of Australia, 23371692

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