Australia has named a new governor-general, the chief representative of Queen Elizabeth II, following the incumbent's resignation last month in a sex abuse scandal.
Prime Minister John Howard appointed Major General Michael Jeffrey to the honorary post Sunday.
General Jeffrey, a former governor of the state of Western Australia from 1993 to 2000, replaces Peter Hollingworth, who was forced to resign last month.
Public opinion turned against Mr. Hollingworth, a former archbishop, after an Anglican Church investigation found that Mr. Hollingworth failed to take strong action against known child-abusers in the church in the early 1990s.
It also became known that Mr. Hollingworth was fighting a lawsuit over allegations that he raped a woman more than 40 years ago, when he was a young priest. The case was later dismissed.