For the first two decades the Australian of the Year was chosen by a panel of five, which included the Victorian Premier, the Anglican Archbishop of Melbourne, the Vice-Chancellor of Melbourne University, the Lord Mayor of Melbourne and the President of the National Council for Women. Although the panel was certainly distinguished, it would in time become too closely associated with Melbourne to be appropriate for a national award. The panel's first choice of Nobel Prize winning immunologist Sir Macfarlane Burnet gained general approval. The editors of "The Age" proclaimed the new honour was symptomatic of Australia's growing confidence as a nation: 'We are beginning to count for something in the world and we should be intensely proud of this fact.'