Did you know that until 1967 barmaids were banned in South Australia? Most other states had hosted anti-barmaid campaigns, and while they were not successful in New South Wales (in 1884 a bill was defeated by just one vote) or Western Australia, they were in South Australia and Victoria.
In Victoria 346 licences were issued in 1885 to barmaids as a means of ending the pernicious practice of allowing women to serve beer. The licensed girls were to be the last of their kind. The Vics eased the regulation as a temporary measure during World War Two but publicans forgot to sack them when the boys got back. Thank God.
Everyone has heard of the Eureka Stockade but in 1918 beer restrictions led to the most serious and prolonged civil disobedience campaign ever witnessed in Australia.
The Federal Government ran Darwin’s hotels after World War One and imposed laws which restricted people taking beer away from pubs and then raised the price by threepence.
A boycott was declared and in December 1918, 1000 men stormed the administrator’s office demanding the man be sent away on the first steamer. The administrator was manhandled, his assistant lost his trousers and an effigy was burnt. That administrator left town, as did another six months later, along with his secretary and the judge of the Supreme Court.
This was a serious issue and eventually the drinkers prevailed.