People Australia

Monica Alma McCarney, née Sullivan, later Duane (1912-1991) stenographer and Labor Party activist

Birth: 5 December 1912, at Paddington, Sydney, New South Wales, daughter of native-born parents Thomas Francis Sullivan (c. 1875-1920), labourer, and Ethel, née Ward. Marriages (1) 1936 at Lewisham, Sydney, to native-born Milton Patrick Austral McCarney (1909-1974), secretary of Vehicle Builders’ Union. They had one daughter and four sons. (2) 1974 at Granville, Sydney, to a widower, Hugh William Duane (1910-1998), a labourer, formerly a farmer, born at Myrtleford, Victoria. Death: 18 November 1991 at Forster, NSW, usual residence Lois Place, Merrylands, Sydney. Religion: Catholic. 

• When she was aged three her father, claiming to be aged 36, enlisted in the Australian Imperial Force, on 10 January 1916, and served with the 3rd Tunnelling Company in France. He did not return to Sydney until February 1918. Discharged, medically unfit, on 10 August 1918, his file was noted that his service had aggravated a prior heart condition. He died in hospital of “heart trouble” on 14 December 1920.
• Her mother seems to have died a few years later and Monica was probably brought up by her grandmother and aunts. She was working in Sydney as a stenographer by 1934.
• She became senior vice-president of the Labor Women’s Central Organising Committee (LWCOC). Addressed public meetings in support of Labor candidates from 1953 to 1972. Spoke at the historic Federal campaign launch at Blacktown in 1972.
• Opposed to drug use, abortion and easy divorce, and a “pro Grouper”, she was leader of the right-wing in LWCOC in the 1950s. After a disorderly meeting of the LWCOC in April 1956 resulted in a walk out of pro-Evatt supporters, she was elected president.
• McCarney was a “well-known Labor Party figure in Granville and districts.” She was official visitor to Callan Park, Gladesville and Rydalmere hospitals and Parramatta Psychiatric Centre in the 1960s.
• After her husband’s death she remarried and, as Monica Alma Duane, in January 1984 was awarded a Medal of the Order of Australia for service to the community.
• Cause of death: cardiac arrest (minutes), ischaemic heart disease (years) and chronic obstructive airways disease (years).

Sources
Information from S. Tracey 1997.