Suggested reading

Later edit: I did not make it clear that this was a newspaper article published in The Age newspaper. 

We will have a new Governor General soon, one Samantha Mostyn. She  seems eminently qualified for the position. In Australia our King has State Governors to represent him and his representative for the whole of Australia is the Governor General. 

Practically, the Governor General is a public speaker and a ribbon cutter but that is I am sure doing them a disservice to describe their job as such. They also sign off on legislation presented to them by governments. The job comes with a couple of very nice houses. Of course the job is not always just ceremonial, as we discovered in 1975 when via the Governor General, Her Majesty The Queen sacked our Prime Minister and his government.

Anyway, the knives came out for the new Governor General once her selection was announced and I rather liked this read. NB, our so called Liberal Party is our conservative right wing party, like the Republican and the Tory parties. AFL is Australian (rules) Football League. I hope you can read it as it goes deep into the heart of sexism and misogyny. 

https://www.theage.com.au/politics/federal/the-sick-joke-that-insults-our-new-gg-and-beyonce-20240404-p5fhhp.html

So I discovered a new word this week. While obsessively playing Beyonce’s stupendous new album, Cowboy Carter, in every room of the house, and on every street I walked down, I was trying to think of how best to describe her ferocity and strength, her sexuality and power as a singer, mother, lover.

Virility kept coming to mind, so I hopped online to check if it only refers to manhood or masculinity. And it does. But it turns out there is a female counterpart – muliebrity – meaning the state of being a woman. It often means softness, but surely, when applied to the Queen Bee, something immensely potent too.

A word we seem to have found little use for.

Beyonce is a woman of meteoric achievement who has soared and been savaged, and in experiencing the cycle repeatedly, as so many public figures do, she has railed against bile and pessimism, saying “with a lot of success, comes a lot of negativity”.

She’s right. I’m growing increasingly intolerant of pervasive negativity, of nasty, often partisan criticism, of seeing the worst in people and gracelessness in public life – it’s exhausting and depressing and just turns people off the news, and politics – and this week set me off again.

Because, within just hours of this week’s announcement that the businesswoman, board member and former AFL boss Sam Mostyn would be our next governor-general, the snark and criticism began, with headlines and commentary declaring: “Cushy job for the wokest of women”, “the most political pick for GG in a long time” and “How can a second-tier warrior of the new Left be a neutral umpire?”

Where was the respect? She hasn’t even started yet. How does anyone benefit from immediately ripping down an experienced leader, respected across major parties, whose future role is largely symbolic and ceremonial, but contains the potential to fill a vacuum left by bickering politicians?

Mostyn will be the second woman to occupy this position, after Dame Quentin Bryce (from 2008 to 2014), but the only people really focusing on this fact were those arguing that this somehow insulted men. And, weirdly, women.

In The Australian, one commentator wrote: “I guess some women will be celebrating Sam Mostyn’s appointment as governor-general as a clenched-fist moment of empowerment. Just quietly, women of that ilk will also be celebrating that someone called Samuel Mostyn would not have had a snowball’s chance in hell of even being short-listed.” I didn’t see any clenched fists, did you? The writer continued: “Mostyn’s appointment is the crowning achievement for one of the country’s most outspoken quota queens.”

Whaaaat? So, if you, as a woman, lament gender inequality, and you get appointed to a high position, it’s because the world has suddenly, despite all evidence to the contrary, tipped the other way? After a century of rule by Samuels, they’re suddenly locked out?

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Empowering, consultative, uniter: Meet Sam Mostyn, the next governor-general

Australia has had 27 governors-general. And, aside from Bryce, an academic, those 26 have been aristocrats, governors, politicians of all stripes, soldiers, judges, army officers, a prince, a former premier, military commanders and major-generals, legal scholars, an archbishop. Notice anything in that line up? A certain … in fact, literal … uniformity?

Mostyn was president of Chief Executive Women, worked for Labor in the 1990s, and the boards she has sat on include Virgin Australia, the Sydney Swans (she was the first female AFL commissioner), Mirvac, Transurban, the Climate Council and GO Foundation. She has exerted a quiet, broad influence. In her words, she has worked in “sport, civil society, arts and culture, First Nations reconciliation, sustainability in the environment, policy development, mental health, gender equality and young people”.

The idea that an appointee needs to demonstrate an absence of views, have no party background, no political experience, is a fiction. Male political leaders, premiers and opposition leaders have filled the position of GG without protest. Liberal MP Eric Abetz encouraged Mostyn, in shedding her “activism”, to emulate former governor-general Bill Hayden, an actual Labor leader.

Do we see men as political operatives and women as political activists?

At a time when the Liberal Party has been haemorrhaging female voters and losing seats to teal Independents, it’s fascinating to watch conservatives argue that the very words diversity, inclusivity and equality are somehow divisive, ignoring that they are values pursued by the majority of the corporate sector. Indeed, these values are not partisan but are held by a broad range of people without controversy or, in most circles, comment.

The idea that any woman who believes in gender equality, as well as diversity, is somehow a left-wing lunatic is a joke. A quick reminder of the likes of former Liberal PM Robert Menzies, who said: “In the long run, won’t our community be a stronger, better-balanced and more intelligent community when the last artificial disabilities imposed upon women by centuries of custom have been removed?”

Are the only skills we want in our governors-general military, legal, political and theological? Or do other skills matter too? Attributes Mostyn has been criticised for lacking – not being a “business heavyweight … [with, as] far as one can tell ... no track record running an actual business or taking P&L responsibility” – would disqualify most of the GGs in history.

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It is not as though Mostyn has engaged in corrupt conduct, in any kind of scandalous behaviour or made offensive remarks? How high we set the bar for women. How stubbornly we continue to portray them as interlopers into male worlds.

There is today a nastiness to much commentary that is counterproductive and only discourages decent people from agreeing to take on public positions, as the onslaught can begin early and become deafening, relentless.

We have witnessed the same thing being done to Australians of the Year. Look at how former army chief David Morrison, a good man with a long, distinguished career of service, was vilified as “woke” when he was selected because he became a diversity adviser after leaving the army, where he had been a powerful advocate of women in his ranks. Think of Grace Tame, a survivor of child sexual abuse and powerful foe of paedophiles, who was relentlessly pulled into culture war debates, against her will.

An extremely unpleasant experience, at best, for both of them.

Again, who profits from caricaturing these people and shutting them down? It’s patently obvious that we are crying out for some decency, some compassionate, even uplifting leadership. Former High Court judge William Deane had been on the executive of the Democratic Labor Party in the 1950s, and as governor-general from 1996-2001, as John Howard put it, “displayed an unfailing interest in the place of the disadvantaged within Australian society”. He also unified the country by the compassion he showed to those suffering after the Port Arthur massacre, the Thredbo landslide and a backpacking fire. He was loved for being human, for showing care.

And he was shown respect.

I couldn’t care less if I disagree with someone politically as long as they are a person of character, integrity and kindness.

New research by Sarah Cameron and Ian McAllister on the decline of the popularity of political leaders, published in the Electoral Studies journal, found that, over time, a perception of personal integrity has become crucial. They write: “We find that leader integrity is the main trait that influences leader popularity and the results indicate that its effect is increasing over time.” One possible explanation was: “in an era of declining public trust in politics and rising populist sentiments among the mass public, voters may be looking to their political leaders to arrest this decline. In short, voters may be seeking qualities in their leaders that they do not find in the political system as a whole.”

Mostyn was a frequent guest on the ABC’s former week night panel show The Drum, which I hosted for years, and was unerringly professional, reasonable, articulate and non-combative. She seemed able to unite, to enter any conversation and somehow bring people to a point of agreement. But what struck me most of all about her appearances was how unusually the younger women in the office responded to her when she came on. One of them said to me one night: “That is exactly the kind of woman I would like to be when I am older.” Others nodded in agreement. They shrugged when I asked why, as though it was obvious. She has an air of cool competence, obvious intelligence, equanimity, cheer and co-operation that lit them up.

Most of the young people I know would struggle to name any governor-general. So isn’t that a good quality to have in one: someone who inspires?

It’s a rarity not just in public life, but anywhere.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese congratulates Sam Mostyn.