A record number of women were sworn-in Wednesday as members Australia’s new left-of-center government.
Among the 10 women serving key roles in the cabinet of new Prime Minister Anthony Albanese are Penny Wong, a veteran lawmaker who will serve as foreign minister, Youth Minister Anne Aly, Australia’s first female Muslim minister, and Linda Burney, who is the Australia’s first Indigenous woman to hold the Indigenous Affairs portfolio.
Another historic first is Ed Husic, who joins Aly as the first Muslims to serve in an Australian federal ministry, who was named by Prime Minister Albanese as Industry and Science minister.
Albanese and Wong took office shortly after the Labor Party defeated then-Prime Minister Scott Morrison and his conservative Liberal-National coalition in the May 21 parliamentary elections so they could attend the so-called Quad summit in Tokyo that included U.S. President Joe Biden, Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida and Prime Minister Narendra Modi of India.
