ALAN JONES:
I don’t know this Liberal Senator Scott Ryan, I don’t know who he is, but he’s one thousand per-cent correct. He’s up in arms over Australia Post’s failure to hoist up the Liberal Dame Margaret Guilfoyle as a trailblazer for women’s equality. The trouble with Margaret, of course – she’s not a lefty.
So Germaine Greer, the Women’s Electoral Lobby Chairman, Eva Cox, Anne Summers, the first Family Court Judge Elizabeth Evatt, all honourable lefties, were honoured in the Australian Legends Stamp Series for 2011. Images of the four “celebrated feminists” appear on the limited edition stamps, which this year take the theme ‘Advancing Equality’.
Well this Scott Ryan chose his words carefully when making the complaint at a Senate Estimates Committee. He said, “I’m not critical of any particular choice, I am however concerned about quite frankly a lack of diversity amongst the choices.”
Margaret Guilfoyle was a trailblazer. She was the Finance Minister in the Fraser Government. Many people said if she’d been the lower house, she would have been the leader of the party. But the Chief Executive of Australia Post, Ahmed Fahour, said ‘well we’d hired consultants to choose who would feature on the stamps’. Well all I can say is that if you did your job – it was poorly done.
But of course you have to be a lefty to be a national treasure. I suppose you have to be a lefty to get your face on Australia Post’s stamps. Seems to be the way of the world, doesn’t it?