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Pres­i­dent Chris­tine Kan­ga­loo has pushed back against crit­ics who ques­tion the im­par­tial­i­ty of her Sen­ate ap­point­ments and con­tin­ue to scru­ti­nise her po­lit­i­cal past, sug­gest­ing that gen­der bias un­der­lies some of the com­men­tary.

Speak­ing yes­ter­day at the open­ing of the Arthur Lok Jack Glob­al School of Busi­ness’ Women in Lead­er­ship Con­fer­ence, Pres­i­dent Kan­ga­loo ad­dressed re­cent pub­lic crit­i­cism over her con­sti­tu­tion­al role and her back­ground in par­ti­san pol­i­tics.

“For the last 63 years, ever since in­de­pen­dence, com­men­ta­tors have in­vari­ably re­ferred to the sen­a­tors ap­point­ed by me in ac­cor­dance with the Con­sti­tu­tion as in­de­pen­dent sen­a­tors. Yet sud­den­ly, for the first time in our his­to­ry, they now re­fer to them as the Pres­i­dent’s sen­a­tors,” she said.