Governor General
Who is our Governor General and what does he do? He represents Australia's head of state Queen Elizabeth II. But don't worry if you don't know who he is. Apart from resolving the odd double-dissolution and attending funerals, we haven't seen very much of him:
Only one in seven Australians can correctly name the Governor-General, Michael Jeffery, and most people have no idea who he is. The man dubbed "Mr Nobody" for his subterranean profile after he took on the vice-regal post in June 2003 is frustrated that his conscientious, yet cautious, style has failed to punch through the haze of public ignorance.
Fourteen per cent of the 1200 people interviewed by Newspoll last weekend could at least provide his surname, a modest improvement on the 7 per cent recorded three years ago.
Major-General Jeffery - a former Special Air Service commander awarded the Military Cross in Vietnam who became deputy chief of the army general staff - blames the media for hindering his efforts to penetrate the national consciousness.
The ezine Crikey's Chrisitan Kerr accuses our current PM of stealing some of the GG's ceremonial roles such as attending sporting events. Crikey now reveals a republican's spin on the matter:
“Ironic isn’t it?” Greg Barns, former head of the Australian republican movement and author of the recently published An Australian Republic told Crikey. “Howard is the bloke who indicated in 1999 that if we were to change the constitution it would affect the stability of the country. Yet he is now usurping that role.Howard is essentially behaving like an elected president. He’s morphing his role into the office of an elected president, but he was so adamant in 1999 that we maintain those offices.”
Regardless, you now know Australia's current Governor General, and our first PM Edmund Barton who as a referee resolved the first international cricket brawl. Edmund Barton was apparently a pretty average PM and perhaps that's why people don't remember him. However, his nickname "Toby Tosspot" will always be in my memory.
Who was Australia's second PM? A hint: there's a regional Victorian university named after him.
Only one in seven Australians can correctly name the Governor-General, Michael Jeffery, and most people have no idea who he is. The man dubbed "Mr Nobody" for his subterranean profile after he took on the vice-regal post in June 2003 is frustrated that his conscientious, yet cautious, style has failed to punch through the haze of public ignorance.
Fourteen per cent of the 1200 people interviewed by Newspoll last weekend could at least provide his surname, a modest improvement on the 7 per cent recorded three years ago.
Major-General Jeffery - a former Special Air Service commander awarded the Military Cross in Vietnam who became deputy chief of the army general staff - blames the media for hindering his efforts to penetrate the national consciousness.
The ezine Crikey's Chrisitan Kerr accuses our current PM of stealing some of the GG's ceremonial roles such as attending sporting events. Crikey now reveals a republican's spin on the matter:
“Ironic isn’t it?” Greg Barns, former head of the Australian republican movement and author of the recently published An Australian Republic told Crikey. “Howard is the bloke who indicated in 1999 that if we were to change the constitution it would affect the stability of the country. Yet he is now usurping that role.Howard is essentially behaving like an elected president. He’s morphing his role into the office of an elected president, but he was so adamant in 1999 that we maintain those offices.”
Regardless, you now know Australia's current Governor General, and our first PM Edmund Barton who as a referee resolved the first international cricket brawl. Edmund Barton was apparently a pretty average PM and perhaps that's why people don't remember him. However, his nickname "Toby Tosspot" will always be in my memory.
Who was Australia's second PM? A hint: there's a regional Victorian university named after him.
posted by Engels at 1:18 pm
2 Comments:
Alfred Deakin, of course.
His name, at the very least, should be known to every Australian - he was one of the main architects of Federation, and probably -the- most important figure in early Australian federal history.
Additionally when he created the Ant-Labor fusion party known as the "Commonwealth Liberal Party" he created modern Australian two-party politics.
I had recently read he merged his Protectionist party with Reid's Free Trade party - an odd mixture, no? No doubt this is the Fusion party.
When I moved to Melbourne, I checked out a house on Reid St which was shared by an old loon who claimed he was a former Senator for the anti-nuclear party. It was news to him that the Scottish-born Reid was a PM.
Perhaps Deakin should have had a town named after him like another architect of Federation, Henry Parkes. Of course, Parkes is where The Dish was set.
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