The Dreyfus Files - The Age
On Tuesday, across the ditch, a neat little piece of history was written when Julia met John.
When the Prime Minister touched down in Auckland for talks aimed at strengthening ties between trans-Tasman neighbours, she was met by her New Zealand counterpart John Key. And for the first time in Australia's history, we met with our neighbours represented by a female prime minister.
Our trans-Tasman friends would remind us that for years it's been the other way around, when it was Jenny or Helen, not Julia, meeting John, with former New Zealand prime ministers Jenny Shipley and Helen Clark leading New Zealand at the time John Howard was prime minister of Australia.
But on 24 June last year, Australia followed in New Zealand's footsteps when a woman became our 27th prime minister.
It's particularly interesting then, that despite New Zealand beating us to the milestone by more than ten years, their media this week has taken to describing Julia Gillard as 'Australia's first female prime minister', a fact that here at home is less and less remarked upon.
Much was, of course, made of the Prime Minister's gender when she first took office, but this generation of Australians has a right to be proud that female leadership in the highest levels of business and government is increasingly becoming an accepted norm.
In just the past five years dramatic changes have taken places to the gender make-up in the highest levels of business and government. Children now grow up with media images of a female Prime Minister, a female Governor General, female premiers, female judges, female mayors and female leaders of business and industry.
From my former professional background I've seen over the past couple of decades the transformation of the legal profession, and the increased numbers of women in the judiciary.
All of these women act as role models in their fields, and we can be proud that young Australians today will see this as the new normal.
Of course, some commentators will continue to remark on the appropriateness of our leader's clothes, her hair, her make-up, in a way that our male leaders have never been critiqued. We are far from perfect, and have a long way to go.
But I am proud to be a member of the generation of Australians that saw fit to elect female leaders in offices across the country. And it's fitting that as Australia confronts some of the greatest challenges in the history of our nation, from devastating floods to the global financial crisis to climate change, that we choose our leaders from the very best people, not just the very best men.
