In the absence of Prime Minister Kevin Rudd at a UN conference on climate change in Bali, Deputy Prime Minister Julia Gillard assumes the role of caretaker Prime Minister of Australia.

In concert with High Court justices Susan Crennan and Susan Kiefel, and a bevy of eligible female elders from senior indigenous spokeswoman Lowitja O'Donoghue to New South Wales Governor Professor Marie Bashir, the nation is effectively, for the first time since European occupation, ruled by women.

Only acknowledgement in the form of constitutional reform providing for women's and men's legislatures presided over by an executive of elders accompanied by courts of women's and men's jurisdiction, that women have courageously and comprehensively overcome centuries of the most despicable disadvantage to prove themselves worthy of the same rights men granted themselves, stands in the way of genuine equality between women and men across the nation.

5 December, 2007