It's a sad indictment on contemporary politics that someone being appointed to a senior role because they're clearly the best person for the job is overshadowed by the fact of being a woman.
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Meghan Quinn, the newly appointed Defence secretary, has a work history that, even at a casual glance, makes her well-suited the role, notwithstanding her lack of experience in either defence or intelligence agencies.
An economist with a master's degree from the London School of Economics, Ms Quinn previously led work on the Asian Century White Paper and played a key role in the development of Australia's climate change policy.
It's this experience, integral to Australia's national resilience in departments undergoing large-scale reforms, that made her "clearly the standout candidate", in the words of Prime Minister Anthony Albanese.
And yet, upon announcing the appointment, Mr Albanese, sensibly, did not downplay the significance of Ms Quinn in the role.
"This is a historic appointment with Ms Quinn becoming the first woman to substantively hold the position of secretary of the Department of Defence," he said.
He didn't say it out loud, but Ms Quinn will likely be an agent of change in a department that has a reputation for an infamously blokey culture.
As well as being highly competent, Ms Quinn is also, by all accounts, highly respected.
Her lack of direct previous involvement in some of the matters pertaining to the role is overshadowed by the broad spectrum of experience she has accumulated over decades.
This includes including heading up Treasury's markets group and macroeconomic division, before she was appointed to lead the Department of Industry following Mr Albanese's election in May 2022.
Of course, some on the right maintain her gender comes first and foremost, as some kind of wider mission to achieve gender equity at the expense of merit.
But such calls are to be expected, especially so soon after the appointment of Susan Coyle as the next Chief of the Army.
Federal Defence Minister Richard Marles defended Ms Quinn's appointment on Sky News shortly after the announcement, saying, "a fresh set of eyes" was an opportunity too good to pass up.
"She comes with such important experience in terms of running a large department, and that's really what we wanted in terms of running Defence.
"Particularly through this period of time, where we are going through significant reform, experience of public administration of large organisations is going to be invaluable," Mr Marles said.
"It is a significant moment, though, that we have the first female secretary, and that's not something that we should pass over. But it's not the reason she was chosen."
The words are, again, well chosen.
As Australia's first female prime minister Julia Gillard said in 2013 after she was shunted from the role in a leadership spill, "the reaction to being the first female prime minister does not explain everything about my prime ministership, nor does it explain nothing about my prime ministership".
Ms Quinn is eminently qualified to take on the leadership of one of the five largest government departments.
But it's a department that also requires a significant culture shift.
Her gender isn't everything, but it certainly isn't nothing.
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