A Collie raised woman has taken out an award in the Queen’s Birthday Honours for her service to women through roles advancing gender equality, particularly in local government.
PEAK regional capacity builder Anne Banks-McAllister received the award for member in the general division of the order of Australia for her voluntary and involuntary contribution in local government.
Mrs Banks-McAllister started out in local government as a Children’s Librarian at the City of Subiaco in 1982 and then ended up as the chief executive officer at the Shire of Peppermint Grove and along the way she got into encouraging women to join local government.
“In about 2002 I got really involved to encourage women to apply for senior roles as well as encouraging women to nominate to become councillors. I thought it it would be great to have women making decisions for their community, as well as men and there weren’t enough (women) in the industry I didn’t think,” she said.
“Overtime encouraging women to step up means we see a lot more women in these roles and at the moment we’ve got 30 percent of elected members around the state are women and of course Collie has a female shire president.”
Mrs Banks-McAllister also had many opportunities to travel overseas to help undeveloped countries.
She was the convener of the WA International Women’s Day Hall of Fame and was on the UN Women National Committee of Australia.
She is also the chair for not-for-profit organisation, Women’s Health and Family Services.
“Coming from a strong community like Collie with great parents who support and encourage me I always felt strongly about resilient communities and the role women can play in those communities so I’m sure it set me up for the rest of my life,” she said.
Her parents Wendy and Allan Banks sent flowers to congratulate her for the achievement.
“We are both incredibly proud,” Mrs Banks said.
