The idea for the organization started at a meeting of the Woman's Christian Temperance Union in Perth in 1918. By the time the Union met again in 1921, the AFWV was founded. Bessie Rischbieth was the first president of the organization.They had a magazine called "The Dawn". They helped get the first woman from Australia to represent them at the Legion of Nations in 1922. After she went, they had a woman attend for them to the Legion of Nations three more times: 1928, 1935, and 1936. They wrote a memorandum about sex discrimination in Australia called the "Status of Women," in 1937. Ten years later, in 1947, they wrote another. 