NZ v Australia as it happened

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It should have been Dame Edna!
Posted by: fred of newtown 3:12pm today

All seems like a non issue to everyone. Quentin Bryce seems like a worthy candidate for the job. End of story move on.
Posted by: Hilly 2:30pm today

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KEVIN Rudd has dismissed suggestions of a "pineapple coup" in his appointment of Queensland-born Quentin Bryce as governor-general, or that her gender was the guiding force in her selection.

Quentin Alice Louise Bryce was born in Longreach Queensland in 1942 before growing up in Ilfracombe and studying Law at the University of Queensland.

Mr Rudd and Treasurer Wayne Swan are also Queenslanders. But Mr Rudd today played down the sunshine state connection.

“Well she`s spent a fair bit of her career in Sydney, but then again in Melbourne I suppose that`s another crime against humanity,” Mr Rudd told ABC Radio in Melbourne.

“She`s a person who`s achieved a national career, and you know something ... we`ve all got to come from somewhere, so there you go.

“If you look at Quentin Bryce`s CV and what she`s done with her life, not only is she a person who`s grown up in a tiny town in rural Australia, but she`s a person who`s succeeded in the law, a person who`s lectured in law as one of the first female lecturers in law at university level in Australia, a person who then became federal sex discrimination commissioner, a person who headed a university college at the Uni of Sydney, a person who`s achieved pre-eminence in her field," he said.

“I think it`s a great reflection on the fact that modern Australia is about the proper role of women in our society, unconstrained.”

The choice of Ms Bryce has been welcomed by both sides of politics, with Queensland opposition leader Lawrence Springborg and former communications minister Helen Coonan welcoming her appointment.

But her career is not entirely without controversy. She was accused of sexism herself during her tenure as Sex Discrimination commissioner after Alexander Proudfoot, a doctor with the federal Health Department`s Therapeutic Goods Administration, secured under freedom of information laws a case file from Ms Bryce on which she had written a note, "another example of a male wasting our time with trivia". It triggered several years of legal battles, which were ultimately dismissed.

Australia`s next governor-general is a pro-choice feminist and campaigner for childcare and maternity leave who believes women can have it all - although perhaps not at the same time.

Widely regarded as a safe pair of hands, Ms Bryce, 65, is also a straight-talker.

As chair of the National Childcare Accreditation Council, Ms Bryce once said: "There`s a lot of garbage talked about work and family by businesses and by the women who work in them.”

"At a talk I gave to a group of career women, one got up and said she was thrilled because her employer had put in a breastfeeding room. As if that was all they had to do!” she said.

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