Women in charge in regional Victoria: the new generation of country mayors

Finding childcare without much notice was challenging, and her daughter became familiar with the workings of council. So much so, that when The Border Mail published photos of the council line-up, the youngster asked: "Where am I mum?"

She recalls: "We had a couple of urgent meetings for commercial reasons on Christmas Eve, and I remember my daughter sitting at the table colouring in.

"The first 11 years on council I worked full-time, When I first got onto council my daughter wasn't quite three, so the juggle of full-time work, 20-plus hours of council a week, and managing a family – and for a lot of that time I was a single mum – well, you find a lot of hours in the day," she says.

Fast forward more than a decade and Cr Speedie has been recently re-elected Mayor of Wodonga. Last week she was elected chair of Regional Cities Victoria, a group representing 10 of the biggest municipalities in country Victoria.

The 45-year-old is now part of a significant changing of the guard in regional Victoria. More women are being elected as councillors and more are reaching the position of mayor.

Six of the 10 councils in the RCV now have a female mayor, and a seventh, Geelong – whose council was dismissed this year – has a female administrator.

The RCV councils with a female mayor are Bendigo (Margaret O'Rourke), Ballarat (Samantha McIntosh), Horsham (Pam Clarke), Latrobe (Kellie O'Callaghan), Wodonga (Anna Speedie) and Warrnambool (Kylie Gaston). Kathy Alexander is administrator in Geelong.

Yet just a few years ago, the picture was very different.

Cr Speedie and Wodonga CEO Patience Harrington together form the city's first female joint leadership.

"I think it's fantastic," Cr Speedie says, of the ascension of women to top posts. "It's such a significant shift."

For Margaret O'Rourke the rise to mayor was swift. Just two months ago the Bendigo businesswoman was one of a number of people standing for election. She was elected to council and mayor along with a majority of other female councillors.

"It's the first time in Bendigo's history that we've got more women than men on council," she says.

And she believes it is an "extremely important" shift. "It's that diversity around the table," she says. "I think women bring a different skill-set, simply because of their gender."

In the state's west, Warrnambool City Council might have just two women on its seven-member council, but one of them, former restaurateur Kylie Gaston was recently re-elected mayor.

Like other mayors, she has been to many school assemblies recently. "I think it is good for girls to see some female role-models," she says.

Cr Gaston is Warrnambool's 71st mayor, but only the fourth female mayor in the city's history. "What is interesting is that three [women] have been mayor in the last decade," she says.

Ballarat mayor Samantha McIntosh adds that in Ballarat "we don't have a big portrait of a female mayor, [but] there are spectacular paintings and representations of male leading figures".

The city may need to get new portraits painted, or photographed, because both its CEO and mayor are women.

"It seems as if there has been a change in the number of women elected across the state," Cr McIntosh says.

"If young girls see women in leadership roles, they can see they also can do. It's an attitude that needs to be instilled early in life," she says.

In Horsham, business woman Pam Clarke is serving her second stint as mayor, while 22-year-old Alethea Sedgman is the council's youngest-ever councillor.

"She's a wonderful example to young women in the community that they can be leaders," Cr Clarke says of her colleague.

She says it is "really important" that women understand that they have the ability to do whatever they want, and achieve whatever they want.