Sam Mostyn is takes her oath of office in The Senate as the 28th Governor-General. In her first speech, she called on the nation to challenge each other, engage in a contest of ideas and bring a sense of care to big debates. She said that she would follow previous G-Gs, Sir William Deane and Dame Quentin Bryce, signalling she would act as “Carer-in-Chief”. She covered issues that were important to her from the environment to Indigenous reconciliation. ARM greeted the start of Ms Mostyn’s term by commenting that she would, “from today act on behalf of an English aristocrat 17,000km away in London. It’s time for democracy, not monarchy. It’s time for elections, not power and privilege by birthright. It’s time for skills, experience and merit, not kowtowing to a foreign King and his appointed representative. It’s time for Australia to be an equal, not an afterthought.” WfaAR agrees but cautions this is now a long-term project requiring much determination in the face of fear over making (any) changes to the Constitution as well as apathy if the Voice referendum result was anything to go by.
In Senate question time, the Greens asked whether the Government would hold a referendum on the Republic if it won a second term. The response from the Labor Senate leader was non-committal. Senator Lidia Thorpe described the job of Governor-General as “a waste of money” and added that the Government’s focus should be on negotiating a treaty with Indigenous peoples. [“Carer in Chief: Mostyn vows to conduct G-G duties ‘in a contemporary way'” by Sarah Ison, The Australian, 2 July 2024]
