Lawyer, academic, women’s activist and grandmother Quentin Bryce was sworn in as Australia’s governor general yesterday, the first woman to act as the British queen’s representative.
Bryce, 65, is the only woman to take on the vice-regal position, which includes becoming the commander-in-chief of the armed forces, in its 107-year history.
Her appointment was announced earlier this year after Queen Elizabeth II approved Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd’s recommendation that Bryce, then governor of Queensland state, take the post.
PHOTO: AP
As she pledged her allegiance to the British monarch, Bryce said she would carry out her duties with “solemnity, impartiality, energy and a profound love for the country we share.”
“I feel deeply the gravity of the role bestowed on me today,” she said.
The appointment of Bryce, who grew up in a small outback Queensland town and went on to become a lawyer, academic, women’s activist and sex discrimination commissioner, has been well received here despite debate over whether Australia should become a republic.
Addressing the senate chamber after being sworn in by High Court Chief Justice Robert French, Bryce said that Australians were savvy participants in their democratic system and careful scrutinizers of its performance and values.
“We are informed and not afraid to question,” she said. “Equally, we embrace change as a natural and necessary consequence of our evolution. Our growing capacity to balance tradition with renewal is a sure and uplifting sign of our standing as a sophisticated and highly functional civilized society and member of the global community.”
“I promise to be alive, open, responsive and faithful to the contemporary thinking and working of Australian society,” she said. “Australians, you have entrusted a great deal to me, I will honor your trust wholeheartedly.”
Although they perform largely ceremonial roles, the governor general can appoint a prime minister in the event of a hung parliament after an election and has the power to dismiss the leader.
The governor general is nominally the commander-in-chief of the armed forces but in practice they act on the advice on the government.
Rudd praised the fact that Australia had for the first time in its 107-year history of federation sworn in “a truly wonderful woman” as governor general.
“It took us 107 years but we got there in the end,” he said.
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