Ivy-May Sheahan - Liberal Party of Australia (1969 – 1974)

Ivy-May Sheahan was the second female Councillor in Waverley Council. She followed in the footsteps of her Mother; Ruby Hutchison, a single mother of seven who was also the first woman elected to the Legislative Council of the Western Australian Parliament.

There is little on record about Ivy-May’s time with Waverley but she has a remarkable claim to fame in that she and her mother established the Australian Consumers’ Association in 1959, most commonly known as Choice Magazine. Choice was a response to increasing market competition, falling product standards and mass manipulation by marketers. It is a not-for-profit, non-party-political organization and widely regarded as being the first, largest and most influential consumer organization in Australia. It was so successful that by 1960 the committee had to look for commercial premises as Ivy-May’s sunroom in her Coogee flat, which had been used as the ACA office in that first year, quickly became inadequate.

In 1988, Ivy-May received the Queen‘s Birrhday I998 Honours for service to the community, in particular, through the AustraIian Consumers Association.

Despite her work with Choice Magazine and Waverley Council, the Electoral Roll of the time strangely notes her occupation as ‘home duties’.

Ivy passed away 27 August 2009.