Monday, April 14, 2008

Jobs For The Boys, Er Girls

Australia's latest prime minister is the leader of the Australian Labor Party. As such, he has a fair amount of backing from the unions. Parliament has always been a place whereby, if you do your best to uphold the party line, you'll be rewarded with a plum job later. This usually involves a role representing Australia overseas, high pay and plenty more networking opportunities. It's also known as "jobs for the boys." He's becoming quite good at pushing women into the spotlight too - a sort of affirmative action for women.

The position of Governor-General of Australia is the ultimate rubber-stamping job in the country. Basically the G-G is the Queen's representative for our sunburnt country. There is a bit of power involved, i.e. the Government can be sacked (and has happened once!), but it is usually just to approve laws passed. Nothing special.

Kevin Rudd appears to favour his home state of Queensland and his fellow Queenslanders. Now the plum role has been awarded to a fellow Queenslander and I guess that's it not too much of a surprise. The big surprise is that the new G-G is a woman. A woman with a man's name no less - Quentin Bryce. Quentin, a most unusual name for a woman, IMHO, is known for her appearance and not having a hair out of place. So what's happening with the PM's hair? How can the G-G appointee be seen in public with him? This country is moving into the future at a rapid pace.

Quentin Bryce - the G-G appointee. But what's up with PM Kevin's hair?

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hammy for Gov!!!!! 2008!!! Interesting news. We have our presidential election in November. We may have a first female president or the first black man here in the US. Have a good week. Annette

Hammy said...

The term "The Governator" is gone so what would I be known as?