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Yet it is clear that Vida was a candidate of sincerity and integrity. Her beliefs are revealed in her election manifestos between and Although they changed in detail, she consistently supported the principles of compulsory arbitration and conciliation, equal rights, equal pay, the appointment of women to a variety of official posts, and the introduction of legislation which would redistribute the country's wealth.
She was outspokenly opposed to capitalism, supporting production for use not profit, and public control of public utilities. She opposed the White Australia policy in principle although she believed alien immigration should be restricted until equal pay for equal work had been achieved. Her desire to enter parliament and her avowed ambition to become prime minister were based on her determination to put her ideals into practice.
Vida actively promoted women's rights and emancipation in many other ways over the years from to She also worked for many social reforms including equal property rights for man and wife and raising the age of marriage and consent, while advocating new laws on land taxation, food adulteration and the sweating of women workers.
Her methods included lobbying politicians to urge amendments to proposed legislation; she directly influenced many Acts. In December , for example, she had the satisfaction of seeing passed into law her long-demanded Children's Court Act, the terms of which she had helped to draft. In her article 'Socialism of today—An Australian view' in the September issue of Nineteenth Century and After , she included in cost-of-living tables her findings on the lowest wage that a man and his family needed to pay for the barest necessities; this information, it is claimed, influenced Mr Justice Henry Higgins in handing down his famous Harvester Judgment which established the legislative concept of a basic wage.
In August Vida launched her second paper, the weekly Woman Voter , of which she was owner-editor. Of the Australian women connected with the emancipation and suffrage movements of the day Vida Goldstein was the only one to gain a truly international reputation. In February she visited England at the invitation of the Women's Social and Political Union and her speeches drew huge crowds.
Alice Henry wrote that Vida 'was the biggest thing that has happened to the woman movement for some time in England'. During World War I Vida was uncompromisingly pacifist. She became chairman of the Peace Alliance, formed the Women's Peace Army in , and was involved in much valuable social work including the organization of a women's unemployment bureau in and a Women's Rural Industries Co.
In , with Cecilia John , she accepted an invitation to represent Australian women at a Women's Peace Conference in Zurich: she was away three years. This trip signalled the end of her active public involvement in Australian feminist and political work: the Women's Political Association was dissolved, the Woman Voter ceased publication and Vida turned her attention increasingly to promoting more general causes, particularly pacifism and an international sisterhood of women.
Throughout the inter-war years, although no longer publicly prominent, Vida continued to lobby for social reforms such as improved provision of birth control and equal naturalization laws, and urged both women and men to support disarmament and to oppose war.
She was now deeply committed to internationalism. Among the recurrent themes in her writings were her visionary suggestions for a new social order which was to have a spiritual foundation and be based on the 'brotherhood of man' concept of true socialism and on Christian ethics. Indeed, although she had always refused to join a party, Vida sympathized deeply with labour and the cause of working peoples.
Most press reports called her a socialist, but she described herself as a democrat with a vision of society which would enable the complete equality of women with men and decent standards of living for all. She maintained her belief that women had special talents and needs, were potentially the world's civilizers, and therefore had contributions to make to political and international affairs. The family moved to Melbourne in The petition, signed by 30, women, was presented to the Parliament of Victoria in The Commonwealth Franchise Act of granted all non- Aboriginal Australian women the right to vote on a national level.
Although her campaign for a seat in the Senate was unsuccessful, she received nearly 51, votes. Goldstein ran unsuccessfully for the Australian federal Parliament four more times: in and for the Senate, and in and for the House of Representatives.
In , Goldstein launched the journal, The Woman Voter.
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