The RBA governor offered a masterclass at her first presser

The new woman at the top of the Reserve is an impressive operator for the times.

Governor of the Reserve Bank of Australia Michele Bullock: Picture: Martin Ollman

Most Australians would not have watched the live stream of Michele Bullock’s first press conference this week. Which is a great pity for a population which spent a fair slab of 2023 getting fired up against the Reserve Bank of Australia and Bullock’s predecessor as governor, Phil Lowe.

Those who did tune in on Tuesday afternoon would surely have been reassured by this steady and authentic operator whom they see (rightly or wrongly) as controlling their home mortgage payments.

Not to put too fine a point on it, Bullock was brilliant.

Hers was the kind of performance that no amount of media training can deliver, although she has doubtless had good advice from a new media team led by Sally Cray, who once worked as private secretary for Malcolm Turnbull

A tape of the presser ought to become a staple of any media training exercise, so assured was the governor in front of about 45 journalists, including at one least newspaper editor-in-chief, who gathered for this first for the RBA – an all-in media conference straight after its regular board meeting.

There will be more, and doubtless Bullock’s ability to handle the questions will vary over time, especially as the honeymoon period wanes. But her grasp of the material, her no-nonsense approach, and her ability to treat respectfully even the low-ball, tabloid-style questions from a couple of journalists present, was impressive.

And yes, we were judging her as a female leader; it’s impossible not to, given how we are still getting used to women in power.

For years, many of us held our breath as women politicians and CEOs ascended to the lectern; we knew they’d got the job fair and square, they had been given the power, but would they know how to use it? Would they be confident, would they try too hard, would they take the room with them? We willed them to greatness but sometimes it wasn’t enough.

Over decades we saw excellent women leaders figuring out how to project themselves in a male-dominated world of business and politics yet not lose their individual styles and personality.

Bullock is not the first to nail it, but it’s not always the case, and thus important to celebrate her success as a female leader, and then, if we can, forget about it.

She’s not the only good female appointment Treasurer Jim Chalmers has made lately to the institutions that he so values – and is so intent on modernising and reshaping.

Productivity Commission chair Danielle Wood. Picture: Aaron Francis

Over at the Productivity Commission, Danielle Wood has been settling in to her role as chair, and looking over the Statement of Expectations which Chalmers handed her late last year. We know more about Wood’s “public facing” capabilities. Unlike Bullock who was little known outside the bank before her appointment; Wood was out and about a great deal as the previous head of the Grattan Institute; we won’t be nervous when she takes centre stage at the next PC launch. And as more and more women take on big public and private sector roles, we will truly begin to ignore gender, not just pretend to.

A few weeks ago, in this newspaper, I wrote about the rise in the numbers of women CEOs, under the headline: Can we please send the glass ceiling to the scrap yard?

Not surprisingly, it remains an open question, given the small number of ASX 100 women CEOs.

Among those quoted was Susan Lloyd-Hurwitz, the former Mirvac boss who is president of the advocacy group, Chief Executive Women, who said: “It’s certainly not time to relax, it’s time to accelerate. We can’t back off now, we need to press on so we don’t reach gender equality in CEO-land in 50 years but rather in 10 year.”

CEW is certainly not backing off: this week it released its pre-budget submission to the Treasurer, with the focus not on getting more Bullocks and Woods into the top jobs but on the nuts and bolts cultural and policy changes that will make high-quality, satisfying jobs available to more women – whether parents or not.

CEW wants better parental leave, better early childhood education, better support for working parents, arguing that one million extra full-time, skilled workers would be available if women could engage in paid work at the same rate as men.

Its recommendations are not particularly radical and indeed are increasingly part of mainstream discussion on what women need. But one idea has the potential to change cultural expectations about power. It’s the one about paid parental leave being repositioned as a “use it or lose it” scheme. The idea is to encourage men to take their entitlements without feeling emasculated and without being marked down in terms of career progression.

Lloyd-Hurwitz said this week that changing the legislation would “address the conundrum face by the 80 per cent of Australian fathers who agree they are equally responsible for the care of their children, yet only take 14 per cent of paid parental leave”.

Children used to be the elephant in the room in the debates about why women were not getting the top jobs alongside the men. Mothers were expected to front up and above all stay schtum about the kids. No longer.

On Tuesday, Bullock happily mentioned her children and the fact they’d had the foresight to put aside money for their Taylor Swift tickets. No embarrassment from the RBA governor, no sense that she needed to keep the kids out of her work world. (The kids, of course, might well have been embarrassed by their parent. But that’s another story.)

Bullock was on TV again on Friday morning, answering questions, this time from the House of Representatives economics committee. And yes, she did good. Again.