MEMBER HUB

    Members Directory

    CEW members are leaders across diverse sectors in Australia, including government, business, sport, academia, the arts, and the not-for-profit sector.

    Our members share a unifying goal: to remove systemic barriers and create pipelines that enable Australian women to rise to leadership positions in their communities. This ensures a diversity of women's voices at every decision-making table while supporting both women and men to thrive—at work and home.

    Margaret McMurdo

    Margaret McMurdo

    Margaret McMurdo worked as a judge’s associate from 1975 until 1976 when she graduated in law from the University of Queensland. Later that year she was admitted as a barrister of the Supreme Court of Queensland and became the first female paralegal in the Queensland Public Defender’s Office. She was an assistant public defender from 1978 until 1989.

    Margaret was founding committee member (1978–1982) and president (1980–81) of the Women Lawyers Association of Queensland. In 1989 she joined the private bar and practised in criminal law defence and prosecution work and in civil matters.

    In 1991, she became the first woman to be appointed a judge of the District Court of Queensland and in 1993 the first woman to be appointed a judge of the Children’s Court of Queensland.

    In 1998 Justice McMurdo was appointed President of the Court of Appeal, Supreme Court of Queensland, the first woman appointed as a presiding judge of an appellate court in Australia.

    In 2001 Justice McMurdo was awarded the Centenary Medal. In 2006 her Honour was presented the Queensland Law Society’s Agnes McWhinney Award. In 2007 she was appointed a Companion of the Order of Australia for service to the law and judicial administration in Queensland, particularly in the areas of legal education and women's issues for outstanding professional contribution by a woman lawyer.

    Her Honour is a founding fellow of the Australian Academy of Law and a member of the American Law Institute. She has been awarded honorary degrees from Griffith University, the Queensland University of Technology and the University of Queensland.

    The Hon Margaret McMurdo AC retired as President of the Court of Appeal in 2017. Margaret has served as Chair of the Board of Legal Aid Queensland and Chair of the Board of Governors of Queensland Community Foundation since 2017.

    Between December 2018 and November 2020 Margaret was Commissioner of the Royal Commission into the Management of Police Informants in Victoria.

    Since March 2021 Margaret has served as the chair of the Queensland Women’s Safety and Justice Taskforce, examining the best way to legislate against coercive control, whether domestic violence should be a discrete criminal offence and the experience of women in the criminal justice system

    0408732173
    margaret.a.mcmurdo@gmail.com