<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'>SYDNEY (AFP) - Women attending this weekend's APEC leaders summit in <span style="border-bottom: 1px dashed #0066cc; cursor: pointer">Sydney need</span> not hide behind their skirts -- according to an updated Australian etiquette guide it's no longer wrong for them to wear trousers.</p> The latest edition of Australian Protocol & Procedures, the first revision of the guide in nearly 20 years, says it is no longer "wrong" or "daring" for women to wear trousers to official functions.</p> Dress standards for males have also become more relaxed, with white tie rarely invoked and greater acceptance of men wearing long-sleeved shirts and tie without a jacket.</p> "In <span style="border-bottom: 1px dashed #0066cc; background: transparent none repeat scroll 0% 50%; cursor: pointer; -moz-background-clip: -moz-initial; -moz-background-origin: -moz-initial; -moz-background-inline-policy: -moz-initial">Australia</span> I think we really have gone a long way towards evolving our own style of protocol," author Helen Pringle told the Sydney <span style="border-bottom: 1px dashed #0066cc; background: transparent none repeat scroll 0% 50%; cursor: pointer; -moz-background-clip: -moz-initial; -moz-background-origin: -moz-initial; -moz-background-inline-policy: -moz-initial">Morning Herald</span>.</p> "It's more egalitarian in style, on the whole."</p> Her advice, which comes as 21 world leaders and their partners congregate in <span style="border-bottom: 1px dashed #0066cc; cursor: pointer">Sydney</span> for the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum, could help dignitaries negotiate schedules filled with formal engagements.</p> In the book, she notes that official dinners are now less elaborate in Australia, with three courses served rather than five.</p> And sex, politics and religion are no longer banned from dinner table conservation.</p> "The host, however, should watch for any signs that these or any other subjects are beginning to upset guests and should in such cases unobtrusively divert the conversation to another topic," she writes.</div></p> -Petey
