Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has announced Samantha Mostyn AO will become Australia’s next governor-general.
The king accepted Albanese’s recommendation to appoint the 59-year-old business and community leader as the 28th governor-general. She will also become the second woman to serve in the role.
“Sam Mostyn is an exceptional leader who represents the best of modern Australia,” Albanese said at Parliament House on Wednesday.
She will be sworn in as governor-general in July, taking over from Governor-General David Hurley.
“I’m deeply honoured by this great privilege and look forward to representing the values, hopes and aspirations of all Australians,” Mostyn said. “I will never underestimate or take for granted the expectations that come with high office and I am ready to serve with integrity, compassion, and respect.”
Mostyn was appointed an officer of the Order of Australia in 2021 for distinguished service to business, the community and women.
She described herself as the daughter of an army officer and a beneficiary of the public education system, talking to reporters not far from the old Canberra hospital where she was born on Wednesday.
Mostyn studied arts and law at the Australian National University, starting her career as an associate in the NSW Supreme Court of Appeal. The same university awarded her an honorary doctorate of laws in 2018.
She has been on the board of companies and not-for-profits including Transurban and Virgin Australia and the chair of Citibank Australia, and currently sits on the Mirvac board while chairing AWARE Super and Alberts Music Group, as well as several not-for-profit boards.
She was the first woman appointed commissioner of the Australian Football League and was a driving force behind the AFLW competition.
“Millions of Australians know this to be true, that being of service is what often provides a person with their greatest happiness and sense of purpose,” Mostyn said. “That is certainly the case for me, and I can think of no greater purpose … than to serve this country I love as governor-general.”
The governor-general is the monarchy’s representative in Australia and the nation’s highest office. They serve at the pleasure of the king, typically for a term of five years.
Bit young to be a GG?
“She described herself as the daughter of an army officer and a beneficiary of the public education system, talking to reporters not far from the old Canberra hospital where she was born on Wednesday.”
Brilliant. Syntax 101 anyone?
No proof readers or sub-editors at Crikey!
Damn you beat me to it , Chris…. furthermore, the “old Canberra hospital” was in Acton and blown up many years ago (deliberately of course)….such “old Canberra hospital” being the place where I gave birth to my daughter back in the seventies.
Was she born yesterday? Isn’t she old enough to be born in a tent?
Hopefully that’s the end of the unimpressive military leftovers installed in the office by the Coalition. Part of Howard’s scheme to militarise the public imagination.
Yes. We can look forward to equally unimpressive corporate leftovers whose only claim to equity and social justice is that they go to a different toilet, maybe wear a dress, have a different type of voice. You know. That they are women. Not blokes. I feel so much better that the person representing us as our Head of State is not a military man but a corporate hack on the Board of a road company that got the gig because the government has given up on doing its job of providing roads and public transport, that is on the Board of an aviation company that screws both its consumers and its workforce which are largely NZ based, that served as the Chair of a multi-national bank who are profit driven and definitely have no social conscience. I feel better now!
Pretty sure she has some background with the AFL, an organisation that actively covers up illicit drug use by its players.
Therefore, eminently qualified to represent the UK branch of our overlords.
When it comes to the GG, no news is good news. May the new one remain an irrelevant anachronism.
Since 1930 the Governors General are appointed and serve at the pleasure of the Australian Prime Minister. History: Isaac Isaacs, James Scullin, King George V. It’s a courtesy but Albanese should not be perpetuating this myth. The King does what he is advised by the PM whether it’s UK, Australia or NZ, he has no choice.
except in 1975
And whenever it may again be convenient to do so in the future, as nothing has changed in our constitution since 1975 to prevent it.
I’m having doubts already. On the Board of Transurban. The corporation that has done perhaps most to make the lives of Sydney’s road users a most expensive exercise, a living hell (at times) and a total rip-off!! No doubt the former will go on her CV – “I was on the Board of Transurban” not “I was on the Board of a Corporation paid a large sum of money for the privilege of charging poor road users whatever the hell I damn well like and stuff you ’cause the State Government can’t be stuffed spending money on roads as there isn’t any public transport to speak of”. The latter is what should be there.
Mostyn might be a 21st century corporate boss as opposed to the 1930s corporate bosses who take up so much space in the Australian media, but she’s still a corporate boss. But who cares who the King’s Deputy Ribbon-Cutter is.
Agree. She is just another neo liberal crook. Is there an endless supply of these?
Glad to be rid of Hurley but this is no improvement.