Primary Job Title Founder Primary Organization 
Choice
Location Fairfield, California, United States Regions San Francisco Bay Area, West Coast, Western US Gender Female
LinkedIn View on LinkedIn
Ruby Hutchison is a Finance at Safeway.
A member of the Western Australian Legislative Council, and the first woman to be elected to that body (in 1954), Ruby Hutchison MLC founded the Australian Consumers' Association (ACA) - the organisation we know today as CHOICE.
"Red Ruby" was in many ways a trailblazing politician and
campaigner. As well as breaking into the "boys club" that was the WA Legislative Council, in 1962 she founded the WA Epilepsy Association and became a tireless advocate for people who suffered from this condition. She was also actively involved for many years in the Girl Guides and the WA auxiliary of the state's Boy Scouts Association.
But it is perhaps her work in consumer advocacy for which she is best remembered. As a single mum with seven children, Ruby was only too well aware of how vulnerable consumers - particularly women - were to being ripped off by pushy salesmen peddling shoddy goods. It was her determination to see consumers informed about their rights and about products, their value and safety that in part led to the birth of CHOICE magazine in April 1960 (click here for more).
Times have changed a lot since 1954. When Ruby first entered the WA Legislative Council, the media noted that "the Monday wash lay waiting in a copper". And in 1959, when she founded the ACA, consumer rights and protections were practically non-existent. As Ruby herself put it:
“I am only a housewife, but I know how the housewives of [WA] are being robbed. I am not too learned in legal phraseology, but I would say that unfair trading practices would mean the taking of profits by big concerns up to a saturation point."
