Speeches
Thursday, 19 February 2026
Swearing-in of the Honourable Chief Justice Laura Stein
Welcome to Government House this morning.
The first female Supreme Court Judge appointed in South Australia, and indeed Australia, was, of course, Dame Roma Mitchell.
She served on the bench from 1965 to 1983.
Dame Roma later became South Australia’s 31st Governor, and the first woman in our state, and the nation, to hold this office.
Sixty one years after Dame Roma’s elevation to the Bench, it gives me great pleasure as SA’s 36th Governor, to swear in Justice Laura Stein as Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of South Australia, the first woman in our state to hold this office.
Justice Stein will swear her oaths on a bible given to Government House by Dame Roma’s estate.
As well as an occasion of constitutional, and, of course, personal significance, you are also witnessing a piece of history.