That was very different to the second speaker welcoming the new Chief Justice, Fiona McLeod, President of the Law Council of Australia, who framed her speech to signify the great importance of the event for women in the law in Australia for marking the fact that we have a first female Chief Justice, and noting also that the ceremony started with a dramatic visual difference for women, the fact that our new female Chief Justice took her oath of office and allegiance from another female justice, Justice Virginia Bell. Susan Kiefel, who replaces outgoing Chief Justice Robert French, is the first woman to hold the position in the High Court’s 113-year history. The attorney general, as perhaps we might have expected from the way he announced the appointment of Susan Kiefel, placed great emphasis on the fact that she is an extraordinary judge with an unusual background, and her story is one of inspiration for both men and women. Kiefel said that it had taken more than 80 years from when women were able to vote in 1902, and when the high court was established in 1903, for the first female justice of the high court, Mary Gaudron, to be appointed in 1987.
Susan Kiefel is sworn in as the first female Chief Justice of Australia.