The Susan Ryan Oration is the University's flagship International Women's Day event and honours one of our community's greatest gender and age advocates, the late Susan Ryan AO.

This annual Oration gives our nation and our community the opportunity to remember Susan and reflect on her incredible legacy of advocacy and her far-reaching contributions that changed Australia and our world for the better. The event aims to drive important conversations around gender equity and discrimination - national debates that Susan helped ignite across her many years of work.

The Inaugural Susan Ryan Oration was delivered by Samantha Maiden on Tuesday the 8th of March, 2022 at the Australian National University.

Samantha Maiden is the political editor for news.com.au.

She won the 2021 Gold Walkley Award for her coverage of Brittany Higgins' rape allegation that rocked Canberra. She also won a Walkley for best coverage of a major event.

This was her third Walkley, she also won scoop of the year for Scott Morrison's secret bushfire holiday to Hawaii in 2020.

A press gallery veteran, she was named Journalist of the Year at the 2021 Kennedy awards. She has covered federal politics for more than 20 years, including for The Australian and NewsCorp's Sunday papers.

But her career began in South Australia, where she edited Adelaide University's student newspaper On Dit in 1992 and covered state politics.

She is a regular guest on the ABC's Insiders and The Project. Her first book, Party Animals, was published in 2020. Her career highlights also include being called a "mad witch" by Peter Dutton.

The Honourable Susan Ryan AO was one of the University's greatest pioneers for equality. Susan worked as the first female Senator for the ACT in 1975 and was also the first female to hold a Cabinet role in the Hawke Government.

Susan pioneered extensive anti-discrimination and equal opportunity legislation and was Australia's first Age Discrimination Commissioner from 2011 until 2016.

Susan's legacy was recognised in 2017 when ANU awarded her an honorary doctorate, and again 12 months later when she was named ANU Alumna of the Year.

In 2021, ANU Vice-Chancellor Professor Brian Schmidt announced the renaming of the ANU International Women's Day event to the Susan Ryan Oration.

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