Wednesday’s Age quotes the Australian Governor-General, Quentin Bryce, as strongly supporting the introduction of statutory paid maternity leave for Australian women, and paid parental leave in general.

Ms. Bryce is also reported by the ABC to be “optimistic about the future of the Murray-Darling Basin”.

Both of these issues are highly topical in Australia at the present time, and Australia’s public and major political actors are far from unanimous about them. Each of Ms. Bryce’s statements would be strongly contested from different points of the political compass. Not surprisingly, the Governor-General’s statements have therefore been seen by some as breaching the convention that Australia’s head of state should be “above politics” - an issue which invariably arises in debates about the form of an Australian republic.
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