# Mary Gaudron, who opened the door

> She argued the equal pay case at 29 and became the only woman on Australia's high court for a century.
- Title: Mary Gaudron, who opened the door · the Guardian | Shortify
- Summary: She argued the equal pay case at 29 and became the only woman on Australia's high court for a century. Gaudron won equal pay and maternity leave rights…
- Keywords: australia, law, equality, women, obituary, news, world, Mary, Gaudron, opened, door, the Guardian
- Source: the Guardian — https://theguardian.com/law/2026/sep/14/mary-gaudron-dies-aged-83-death-first-female-judge-australia-high-court
- Author: Australian Associated Press
- Published: 2026-09-14T00:44:04+00:00
- Read time: 1 min
- Topics: australia, law, equality, women, obituary, news, world
## A first, and for a long time the only
Mary Gaudron has died aged 83. Appointed to Australia's high court in 1987 at just 44, she served until 2003 and was the only woman on that bench in the court's first hundred years.
## From Moree to the Sydney bar
Born in a north-west New South Wales country town in 1943, she studied law at the University of Sydney on a scholarship and practised in defamation and industrial law.
## Equal pay, won at 29
In 1972 she became the first woman on the NSW Bar Council and successfully argued the equal pay case before the conciliation and arbitration commission. Two years later she was its deputy president, later presiding over a maternity leave test case.
## The darkest aspect
On the high court she helped decide Mabo v Queensland, the case that recognised native title. She and William Deane wrote jointly about what dispossession had done.

> the darkest aspect of the history of this country
## Naming what she saw
In 2000 she said plainly that some powerful men did not believe in equality at all. It was an unusually direct thing for a sitting-era judge to put on the record.

> There are, I think, people who do not accept that men and women are equal ... who actually fear the equal participation of women in the workplace
## A path others now walk
After the court she led the International Labour Organization's administrative tribunal in Geneva. Governor general Sam Mostyn said Gaudron inspired generations to pursue law and public service.

> Her legacy endures in the Australian legal system and in the many people who continue to follow the path she helped forge.
## Key takeaway

Gaudron won equal pay and maternity leave rights before she ever reached the high court, then helped write the Mabo judgment.