An eminent academic, lawyer and a leading member of the Jewish community, Sir Zelman Cowen, was appointed last Thursday as Australia’s next Governor-General. The appointment was announced simultaneously in London and Canberra by Queen Elizabeth on the advice of Australia’s Prime Minister, Malcolm Fraser.
Sir Zelman, 57, is Vice-Chancellor of the University of Queensland, Brisbane, a former Dean of law at the University of Melbourne, and has taught at Harvard and Oxford Universities. He replaces Sir John Kerr whose surprise resignation was announced Thursday after serving only three years of the designated five-year term allotted to the Head of State. Sir Zelman is the second Jew, after Sir Isaac in the thirties, to hold the office. Sir Zelman was Sir Isaac’s biographer.
In Australia, as in Canada and other dominions of the British Commonwealth, the Governor-General is the Queen’s representative whose duties as Head of State are both constitutional and ceremonial. Although traditionally the position has been limited in its powers, Sir John Kerr became a figure of great controversy during a constitutional deadlock over appropriations in 1975.
He dismissed the then Labor Prime Minister, Gough Whitlam, from office, appointed the Liberal Party’s Malcolm Fraser as caretaker Prime Minister and called a national election which brought Fraser to office. Bitter public debate and wide spread demonstrations followed the decision. Constitutional lawyers remain divided on whether Sir John went beyond the prescribed powers assigned to the Governor-General.
It is against this background that Sir Zelman’s appointment takes on a significance much greater than that normally associated with the figurehead role.
BRILLIANT ACADEMIC CAREER
Born in Melbourne, Sir Zelman was a teenage prodigy who had a brilliant academic career at the University of Melbourne which has never been equalled. He was appointed to the faculty as a professor of political philosophy at the age of 19, served in the Navy during World War II, went to Oxford as a Rhodes Scholar, and became Dean of Law at the University of Melbourne at the age of 31. He has published widely in public and constitutional law. Active in the Jewish community, Sir Zelman has served on the Board of Governors of the Hebrew University in Jerusalem.
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