Dame Quentin Bryce

Dame Quentin Bryce, Australia’s 25th Governor-General, has led an exceptional career spanning academia and Australian public service. Dame Quentin was one of the earliest women to be admitted to the Queensland bar having graduated from the University of Queensland with Bachelor of Laws and Bachelor of Arts degrees in 1965. In 1968 she became the first female appointment at the T. C. Beirne School of Law at the University of Queensland from 1968 to 1983, when she served as a lecturer in law.

In parallel she gained prominence in a variety of quasi-public sector roles. The first of which, an appointment to the National Women’s Advisory Council, highlighted what would become a career long advocacy for gender equity at all levels of government and public sector leadership. She would eventually convene the Council in 1982. Through the mid-1980s and early 1990s she was variously the first Director of the Queensland Women’s Information Service, the women’s representative on the National Committee on Discrimination in Employment and Occupation, the Queensland Director of the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission, as well as the Federal Sex Discrimination Commissioner.In 1993 Dame Quentin became the founding chairperson and CEO of the National Childcare Accreditation Council, where she led efforts to ensure and improve the quality of child-care services in Australia. She later served as the Principal and CEO of the Women’s College at the University of Sydney from 1997 to 2003.

In 2003 she was appointed Governor of Queensland, the second woman to hold the role, and that same year she was made a Companion of the Order of Australia.

In 2008 Dame Quentin was appointed the first female Governor-General of Australia, a position which she held until 2014. As Governor-General, Dame Quentin devoted much of her attention to social justice and human rights issues, placing special emphasis on promoting and protecting the rights of the country’s Indigenous peoples. She delivered the 2013 Boyer Lecture series speaking to the importance of human rights in building neighborhood, community and citizenship.

Dame Quentin has supported a variety of charitable and community organisations throughout her career, including as President of Women’s Cricket Australia, Chair of the National Breast Cancer Advisory Council and as Patron of the Indigenous Literacy Foundation.

Appearing in:

• Saturday Day Pass Program – Panel: Quentin Bryce: Authorised