Acclaimed Australian actress Sigrid Thornton has unveiled a plaque in honour of the courageous actions of her feminist and activist mother Merle at Brisbane’s Regatta Hotel.

Thornton, 66, who was at the Toowong pub yesterday for a cyclone-delayed International Women’s Day (IWD) event, said her mother Merle, who died last August aged 93, would have been “thrilled” at the fanfare.

“This is the first IWD without her which is very poignant and sad. It was a day of real celebration for her,” Thornton said.

Merle Thornton, an author and academic, made history on March 31, 1965, when she and her friend Rosalie Bogner chained themselves to a foot bar rail in the front bar of the Regatta to protest against women being prohibited from being served drinks in public bars.

While bartenders refused to serve them, bemused male patrons bought them beer while then-police officer Jack Herbert – who would be later known as the “bagman” in Queensland’s Fitzgerald inquiry into corruption – cut them free, without arrest.

The brazen act by the two women gained global publicity and five years later, in 1970, the Queensland law was changed enabling women to drink alongside men in public bars.

The Regatta’s front bar became affectionately known as “Merle’s Bar” where Sigrid and her brother Harold unveiled the new plaque honouring Merle’s “unwavering spirit and enduring legacy” containing her quote: “Equality is not something to wait for: It is something to fight for.”

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Photo: Christine Retschlag

In an exclusive interview yesterday with InDaily, Thornton, best known for her roles in The Man From Snowy River, All The Rivers Run, and Sea Change said those who did not consider themselves feminists “should look it up in the dictionary”.

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“The word feminism speaks to equal opportunities for women as are available for men. There has been a massive imbalance over myriad generations, and it continues,” she said.

“Things have turned around for the better, but the ship is still in the process of turning and there is a great deal more to be done.

“Often people who talk about not being feminists haven’t given themselves the opportunity to look at the history. There are many notable male feminists who wouldn’t identify as such.”

Thornton said there needed to be better mechanisms to deal with Australia’s current rate of homicide by domestic violence. Two women each week are killed at the hands of an intimate partner in this country, one of the highest rates per capita in the world.

“It is one leg of a giant octopus, and we need to equalise men and women’s opportunities to make decisions. The #MeToo movement was another leg of the octopus,” she said.

“All of these things cross over and there are paradigm shifts that need to happen. Violence against women comes from a place of anguish and anxiety.

“There is no one ‘fix it’. We need to think globally and act locally. IWD is an important day to celebrate women of all colours, shapes, sizes, creed and aspirations and their potential and achievements and that’s a very good thing.”

Speaking to a crowd of around 50 people at the Regatta Boatshed restaurant, Thornton said her while mother Merle Thornton was a “radical feminist”, she, herself, did not always find balancing work and motherhood easy.

“There have been long periods where I have felt maybe I should be doing this or doing that,” she said.

“It is not possible to do it all sometimes. Women need partners to help them and men need partners to help them.

“We have to do the best we can. It is a bit of a stumble along.”

“The word feminism speaks to equal opportunities for women as are available for men,” says Sigrid Thornton. Photo: Christine Retschlag

Of her long and prestigious acting career, Thornton said she was “proud I’m still here” despite some challenges.

“I’ve made a crust out of something I still love to do after many, many years as a professional since I was 13 years old,” she said.

“It has been good to me and in some ways has not served me. Being a mainstream success in my early years didn’t serve me when a different way of Australian filmmaking came to the fore.

“Someone who had a successful career at a young age would have been anathema for a lot of the films that were on the list. Australia is a small pond and the show business pond is very small.”

Thornton described herself as an “arts and feminist advocate” while offering advice to aspiring women actors.

“I’ve got the fire in my belly and someone’s got to do the work,” she said.

“You’ve got to love it so much that the good times far outnumber the bad times.”