Victoria’s first female governor, Linda Dessau, was sworn in at Government House in Melbourne’s Botanic Gardens on Wednesday.
She is the 29th Governor of Victoria, and follows in the footsteps of the outgoing Alex Chernov QC, whose four-year term expired in late June.
Despite leading Victorian public policy on family and women’s issues, Dessau said she does not want her gender to define her work as Governor. Rather, she hopes that it has paved the way for female governors to become commonplace. She commented in her speech that: “As I have observed elsewhere, [it’s an appointment] that I hope will be less and less a matter for comment as more and more women inevitably step into more and more roles in this state.”
The youngest of four children, Dessau was born in Victoria in 1953 and went on to study law at the University of Melbourne.
Graduating in 1976, she embarked on a prodigious career in family law and has been described by Premier Daniel Andrews as an “honest voice of change”.
She was a long-serving judge of the Family Court of Australia, having served on the bench from 1995 – 2013, and has spent much of her career leading the advocacy on family violence issues: bringing widespread attention to domestic and family violence which in the 1990’s were issues that were far less broadcast and discussed publicly.
Not only is she Victoria’s first female Governor, but she is also the Victoria’s first Jewish Governor. Like many in Melbourne, her father migrated from Poland at the start of the Great Depression, and the persecution of Jews was one which underscored much of Dessau’s experience growing up. It also established her belief that people from all different backgrounds can and should live in harmony, having said that, “What was absolutely encoded in me from the earliest age was, first, how lucky we were to be growing up in Australia, in Victoria,”
Fittingly, she has also served as AFL Commissioner — a position which she is stepping down from now that she has been sworn in as Governor. She’s also a big Essendon supporter, having served as the inaugural chair of the Essendon Women’s Network in 1997.
If Dessau’s background is a measure of how her term as Victorian Governor will play out, it will no doubt be one of advocacy of women’s issues, and one which encourages social cohesion. At a time when two women continue to be killed by violence every week in Australia, the gender pay gap has widened, and the Federal Government has regressed on numerous women’s issues, we certainly need a loud and clear voice on these matters, as well as a strong precedent for future female government officials Australia-wide.