The very first women in the world to receive the right to stand for public office, and the second (after New Zealand) to receive the right to vote were the women of South Australia. These rights were granted by the The Constitution Amendment Act 1894. It is interesting to note that under this act women were entitled to more generous provisions for postal voting than men!
The full text of the act is reproduced here:
Be it enacted by the Governor of the Province of South Australia, with the advice and consent of the Legislative Council and House of Assembly of the said province, in this present Parliament assembled, as follows:
The right to vote for persons to sit in Parliament as members of the Legislative Council, and the right to vote for persons to sit in Parliament as members of the House of Assembly, are hereby extended to women.
Women shall possess and may exercise the rights hereby granted, subject to the same qualifications and in the same manner as men.
All Constitution and Electoral Acts and all other laws are hereby amended, so far as may be necessary to give effect to this Act.
Every female voter, whether she has reason to believe she will be absent from the electoral district or not, shall be entitled at any time after the issuing of the writ to apply for a certificate in one of the forms, as the case may be, of the Schedule A to "The Absent Voters Electoral Act, 1890," from the Returning Officer that she is registered as a voter upon the electoral roll and entitled to vote at the forthcoming elections.
The application hereinbefore mentioned need not contain the matters set forth in paragraph 3 of the application in Schedules A and B of the Act No. 577 of 1893; but in lieu thereof the applicant shall declare that she is resident more than three miles from the nearest polling-place, or that by reason of the state of her health she will probably be unable to vote at the polling-place on polling day.
The provisions of "The Absent Voters Electoral Act, 1890," and the said Act No. 577 of 1893 shall, except so far as inconsistent with the provisions in sub-sections (1) and (2) of this clause, apply to every female voter.
This Act may be cited as "The Constitution Amendment, 1894."