AUSTRALIA: Britain's Queen Elizabeth II arrives in Australia today as the country lurches towards a constitutional crisis caused by allegations that her representative covered up child sex allegations.
The allegations focus on the Governor-General, Dr Peter Hollingworth, and his 11-year term in office as Anglican Archbishop of Brisbane.
After her arrival in Adelaide, Queen Elizabeth will be met by Mr Hollingworth, who stands accused of mismanaging and later covering up a series of sexual abuse complaints against clergymen formerly under his authority.
As calls for his dismissal ahead of the queen's arrival continued, Dr Hollingworth's daughter told commercial radio yesterday that it was unlikely he would step down from office.
"It is not so much that he is determined to stay because that sounds like he is taking an arrogant or a high-handed approach," Ms Deborah Hollingworth said.
"But he is currently in that role and I certainly hope he hangs in there.
"It's unquestionably tough and I think they [her parents\] are very upset, particularly about the fact that they are being portrayed as people that they are not," she said.
Dr Hollingworth has been under siege for the past 10 days over his handling of the allegations, most of which first surfaced during the 1990s but returned to haunt him less than a year after his appointment as governor-general.
"He is not the sort of person to engage in a cover-up. That is not my dad," Dr Hollingworth's daughter said.
"He is a really highly principled person. He is compassionate. He is a warm and caring man.
"He is somebody who has served his community tirelessly. He has worked in public life for all of his adult life."
Dr Hollingworth has refused to resign, while the Prime Minister, Mr John Howard, has declined to petition the queen to dismiss her representative.
Mr Howard has said previously that sacking the governor-general would unleash a "constitutional earthquake".
The Deputy Prime Minister, Mr John Anderson, said he supported the prime minister's decision not to seek Dr Hollingworth's dismissal, but criticised the governor-general's lack of sensitivity. "He plainly could have handled some matters more sensitively, but he himself has not been charged with any inappropriate treatment of young people," Mr Anderson said.
There is no precedent in Australian history for the dismissal of a governor-general, who acts as the head of state in the absence of the monarch.
But the opposition Labour Party has already withdrawn its support for Dr Hollingworth, while several state premiers have called on him to step down.
The Labour Party's foreign affairs spokesman, Mr Kevin Rudd, said the furore was in danger of overshadowing the Commonwealth summit in Queensland starting on Saturday.
"I think the real problem emerging with all of this is we have a very large scale international policy agenda which Australia will be engaged in within days," Mr Rudd told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.
Mr Rudd expressed a fear that "there is a grave danger that the substantial business" of the Commonwealth summit, "including that related to Africa, including that relating to Zimbabwe in particular, will begin to be overshadowed by this rolling controversy".
Meanwhile, the queen was in Auckland yesterday where tight secrecy for New Zealand's next defence of the America's Cup yacht race was waived, allowing her view preparations without signing the normal confidentiality code.