Address To The Sydney Institute – Quentin Bryce

On Tuesday 1 September, Her Excellency Ms Quentin Bryce AC, Governor General of Australia delivered The Sydney Institute’s Annual Dinner Lecture for 2009 at Star City Harbourside Ballroom to a capacity crowd of 900 guests. Ms Bryce was introduced by former Premier of NSW Hon Nick Greiner AC and the vote of thanks was given by former Premier of NSW Hon Bob Carr. The MC for the evening was Chairman of The Sydney Institute Nicholas Johnson, CEO of Barclays Capital Australia. The Annual Dinner for 2009 was sponsored by Australia Post.

ADDRESS TO THE SYDNEY INSTITUTE ANNUAL DINNER 2009

HE MS QUENTIN BRYCE AC

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for your very warm welcome.

Gerard and Anne, thank you for your generous invitation to me this evening. I have known both our hosts for many years now, and it’s reassuring to me that they are still doing what they’re doing: leading and running The Sydney Institute, an important gatherer of people and ideas; an agent for discussion about the things we care about; a forum for thinking aloud; and a chance to catch up with friends and colleagues at the end of long working days.

There’s no doubt that part of its enduring success and following is due to the fact that one declines an invitation from Gerard Henderson only at one’s peril. Always better to turn up I think, hear what he has to say about you, and hopefully stare him off the worst of it!

One of the things I’ve always done is write letters, the old fashioned way. Growing up in the bush, it’s what we all did. I’ve never shaken the habit, nor ever wanted to. For the past few years, people from all over Queensland, and now the whole country, pen me notes about what’s going on in their lives, what they want me to pay attention to, and what they don’t much like about me.mI feel privileged to receive these letters, and grateful that we live in a society that fosters such an easy and honest exchange. Every so often, an exchange continues beyond a letter here and back. There’s one that started in September last year and is still going.

A farming couple from the Victorian goldfields region wrote to me the morning after they’d seen me in an interview with Kerry O’Brien on the 7.30 Report. At the start of the interview, Norman remarks to Muriel, “I don’t think she’s going to be our sort of person.” Muriel agrees. Nevertheless, they take a quick look, and then decide to sit it out. Their commentary on my answers is warm and intelligent, sincere and direct. In the end, with relief, I get through! “Must be your country upbringing,” they conclude.

Ladies and gentlemen, I want to tell you a little about where I’ve come from, to help explain where I’ve been, what I’ve done and who I’ve met during my first twelve months in office. I’ve met people going through real trauma – as individuals and as communities – and if there’s one word that I’ll keep coming back to tonight, it will be the word “tough”.

We are tough people.

In my early years, I lived with my mother and father and three sisters at Ilfracombe in central western Queensland. It was a town of 300 people in a shire of only a hundred more, 800 kilometres west of Rockhampton, between Barcaldine and Longreach. Ilfracombe is at the heart of sheep and cattle grazing country, and back then in the 40s and 50s, the land grew some of the best wool in the world.

It was hot and stark and, on the whole…brown. Not the red brown of rich farming soil. The earth was a dusty, washed-out brown, and the Mitchell grass stumps were the colour of milky coffee. And those flies, they just hung around in their thousands.

And that was it. The goats’ milk chewed out the scrub. And you couldn’t grow trees or gardens, though my mother made a mighty fist of it every year. The bore water was terrific for scouring wool, but it was toxic and killed just about any form of plant life. There was, until the early 1950s, no sewerage, no electricity, and no reticulated water. There was little opportunity for travel apart from the odd footy match in Longreach. And it wasn’t uncommon to have several generations living in the one house.

It was a close-knit community. People had enormous respect for one another; they were tough, yet considerate and well-mannered; they supported each other through rain, and drought. Friendship was based on what you gave, not what you earned. And despite the blight occasioned by two world wars and a depression, they shared a resolve to make life better for their kids. There was an almost defiant sense of hope.

My father managed the local wool scour. It was the town’s biggest employer. Everyone wanted to share in the pride of producing what was then Australia’s most lucrative export. My Dad took his responsibilities very seriously. He loved the wool industry and he loved people. For someone who had a sign above his door that read “Be brief, be businesslike, be gone”, he was the greatest yarner I’ve ever known. But there was always the kernel of a message: about honour, or courage, or taking yourself too seriously, or remembering who your friends are.

If I can say that Dad ran the scour, my mother ran the home. A traditional marriage in that sense, but in fact they were equal partners in what was very much a joint venture. They were no different from all the other parents we knew: totally dedicated to their children. But fawn and fuss they did not. My mother was passionate about education and fiercely resolute that her girls would derive its benefits. And we were expected to be involved in things beyond ourselves.

I can say with certainty that my parents influenced my own mothering, and led me to the range of advocacy and rights work I’ve done over the last forty years. And, in a way, perhaps, they brought me to this role.

One of the most enjoyable things I do at Government House and when I travel around Australia is to talk with children. I tell them about our parliamentary democracy – and I often do that as I’m walking into an Executive Council meeting next door! They tell me about their schools, their teachers, their families, their dogs and cats and snakes, and their dreams. And I carry their stories with me: from school to school, city to bush, bush to city.

And to those from small rural and remote communities, who wonder what they might be missing out on in the city, I tell them about Ilfracombe, and I say: “Cherish your country childhood. It will stand you in great stead all your life. You will see sterling examples of friendship, kindness, adaptability, patience, courage and hard work. And you will learn how to be tough when you need to.”

And you will know who you are.

When I took my oath of office in the Senate Chamber nearly a year ago, surrounded by loved ones, colleagues and prominent Australians, the girl from Ilfracombe couldn’t quite believe she was the country’s 25th Governor-General, but she knew too that that dusty little town had played a big part in getting her there.

On that same day, my elder sister, Diane, pulled me aside and looked me dead in the eye.
She told me: “Remember who you are.” In the last twelve months her words have stayed with me. They have reminded me of the sum of what I am, and to give the very best of it. They have urged me to think about what I can give now in a new role, not what I have given before in different roles. And they’ve put me in a quieter place where opening my eyes and ears, my heart and mind is often the most useful thing I can do.

This role affords the privilege of seeing, from a position that offers a vast and truthful lens. It allows me to take in our social fabric: the gauze stretched around and between our institutions, our laws, our economy, and our democratic structures.

I meet a lot of remarkable people. They touch my life, they stir my conscience; they invite me to take a small step into a broader landscape. I have seen in my first year of office that, as Australians, we are united beyond our differences and individual pursuits; we pause to speak and listen to one another – to build fair and inclusive communities, and to restore broken ones.

In East Timor – where I was only 48 hours ago, for a second visit in the last year – our men and women of the ADF and the AFP carry on to keep the streets and homes secure and to engage an ever-younger population that is either out of school or out of work.

In the central highlands of Afghanistan – a tough, volatile and dangerous place – our soldiers resist the insurgency and help the Afghani people rebuild their lives and land: teaching them trades, making bricks, building bridges, laying concrete, helping them get jobs, and starting all this with basic maths lessons.

There is something distinctly Australian about how they do it. They are superbly trained professionals with top-class skills, but they also lead and teach, mentor and play, and live together with a special warmth, modesty and unfailing good humour. Bedding down in a concrete bunker for the night in Tarin Kowt, it was my own tough luck that I missed the sign about “chicks and blokes” time for the toilets and showers! And no one is spared a dig in the ribs, including that “granny in the pink dress”, who happens to be their new Commander-in-Chief.

And when you try to thank them for all that they do, they brush it off with the typical “It’s my job.” It’s what Trooper Donaldson said after I pinned our country’s highest award for courage to his lapel. It’s what the young soldier who had his legs blown off in a bomb explosion said to me… It’s what they all say. And it’s what their parents and families say. What it means is: it’s what I expect to have to do, I want to do it, and I want to get back to it.

I had lunch with Trooper Donaldson and his SAS mates: they all joked and rubbished each other as if they’ve been on a holiday camp, and then I asked them about their injuries. A trouser leg is absently hauled up and I’m reminded of the terror of their working days.

Each year we wrestle with words to describe the Anzac spirit. I don’t think we ever quite do it the justice it deserves, but we share a sense of it, and we’ve held onto that since it emerged in World War One. In my visits to Dili and Tarin Kowt, Singapore and Malta, to Australian graves and memorials in the weeping battlefields of France and Tanzania’s Dar es Salaam, Australians are spoken of with great fondness and admiration.

Of course it is not only in conflict that Australians shine, but there is a toughness about us that equips us for adversity.

The weather alone delivers our fair share of it. This year it was the devastating bush fires in Victoria and the floods in North Queensland. For years and years huge swathes of the country have been desiccated by severe drought. Livelihoods and whole communities throughout the Murray-Darling Basin have been imperiled by the workings of drought, fire, flood, acid mud and human action over many decades. In the rescues and the cleanups and the long hauls, I see the same attitude over and again. People just rally and get on with it.

I watched the people of Innisfail, who’d lost the contents of their houses to the floodwaters, pick up their Centrelink cheques on one side of the street, walk over to the other, and give them to the bushfire appeal.

There are tears and grief and frustration, but with that, an overflowing generosity, and no fuss. It’s not the silent stoicism though, that I remember of my parents’ generation. People are counselled and encouraged now to talk about their losses in constructive ways that help them to re-establish their lives and communities. This quality of Australian toughness that I keep coming back to – what I saw as a child in Ilfracombe, what is still there today and is embedded throughout our country – it’s not an end in itself. It not only ensures that we cope, it also produces results, achievements, solutions to complex problems.

We see it in our ground-breaking farming techniques, we see it in our management of natural disasters, we see it in our water technologies and climate expertise, we see it in our peacekeeping and humanitarian operations, and we see it in the work of our volunteers here and abroad.

I was privileged when I went to Africa this year to meet with obstetrician Dr Catherine Hamlin, an Australian who has lived and worked in Ethiopia for fifty years. She and her husband arrived in 1959 intending a three-year shift, long enough to set up a midwifery school. They were so appalled by women’s suffering from fistula, caused by prolonged and obstructed childbirth, that they stayed on. They developed a surgical technique to repair the fistulae; and in 1974 they opened the Addis Ababa Fistula Hospital, which has treated more than 30,000 women.

Dr Hamlin turned 85 this year, and she’s still doing surgery. I sat with her in her lovely garden alongside the hospital. I tried to explore with her, her contribution over half a century. She flicked my knee and said, “Oh you don’t want to hear about all that.” She was happy to chatter on for ages as long as it wasn’t about herself.

There is something about being a woman in this role. It’s not about doing it better, only differently. When women get together, particularly older women like me, the ice-breakers are usually our grandchildren. Whether I’m talking with Sudanese women in Adelaide; women out the back of Bourke or in the centre of Sydney; elders in Maningrida or with Dr Hamlin; Her Majesty The Queen or with the first female Prime Minister of Mozambique – family is where we begin…then onto business.

It’s often been said that the face of poverty is a woman. What I have learned is that the face of the future leadership of Africa is also a woman. In my meetings with senior African women in government, development and the judiciary, we focused on maternal mortality, childhood malnutrition, the special needs of the girl child, the toll of HIV/AIDs, and the role of The Global Fund.

The importance of women in leadership is, of course, universal. Recently I visited several bush communities in the Northern Territory. The aboriginal women leaders of Papunya – the Papunya Artists – performed a dance for me: the Honey Ant dance. They’d never done it for anyone else. They honoured me with a ceremonial stick that signifies the story of the land. I keep it in my office to remind me of the privilege of this role and my responsibility to be a Governor-General for all Australians.

Afterwards we sat together on the ground and ate lunch. As always, we talked about our grandchildren, about women and health, breast-feeding, schooling, and the quality of opportunity in Papunya. Recalling how the women spoke with such affection for their community and dedication to their art, how I stood in the arts centre and looked out at the splendour of the landscape, I can only say “I wish you could have been there.” In fact, I say that to Australians wherever I go, about wherever I’ve been, because there’s nothing like seeing it for yourself, and I could never hope to tell all the stories.

The thing we often forget to talk about, or perhaps we take for granted, is our country’s dazzling beauty. Our natural environment is so much a part of Australia’s art, writing, music and culture, both indigenous and non indigenous. The collections of our regional, city, and national galleries, museums and libraries are testament to the depth of our historical and contemporary talent. To have an Emily Kngwarray hanging on a Yarralumla wall, a Margaret Olley at the entrance to my office, a William Robinson close behind me as I correspond with my pen pals, and David Malouf’s Ransom and Kate Grenville’s Lieutenant on the coffee table nearby, I feel immensely fortunate and proud to be an Australian.

We must look after what we have. When I visit inland and remote towns, I often stop by at the aged care centre. Some of those tiny places do it so well. There might be a kindergarten, a school, and a nursing home all within coo-ee of one another, and all connected and involved with the wider community. The kids see their grandparents and great aunts and uncles on their way home from school. They share afternoon tea, sing to them, read books on their beds, and push their chairs in the gardens. Ageing ought to be seen as a natural part of life.

There is no doubt that it presents challenges, most of them randomly dished out to us. How we care for our growing elderly population, whatever extra burdens they might bear in their later years, is a manifest sign of the health, well-being, and humanity of our entire nation.

Ladies and gentlemen, I’ve come to this role on the shoulders of the twenty-four others who have come before me. The way they went about their duties, their speeches, their experiences and responses make up an important manual for me.

When I was leaving Queensland, in anticipation I quoted Sir Zelman Cowan, as if to steel myself. He said the role intellectually stretched him – his knowledge, experience, and capacity were constantly called on and tested. Of course he was right and I only know a drop of it. But I have the greatest faith in my teachers: Australians of every imaginable walk.

I was out at the Windorah Ball a few years ago. Windorah is in Queensland’s channel country, where the great red gums reach out over Coopers Creek- the real outback. It’s a few hundred kilometres west, and then south of Ilfracombe. It was Windorah’s 125th anniversary. I wandered out to the back where the bar was, to have a bit of a look around. I ran into a huge bushie in a nostalgic grey suit he’d probably worn 20 years earlier; and a ten gallon hat to match.

It was quiet. I said to him “Like your hat”, and he said, “Ye reckon.” Then he just stood there looking at me for a couple of minutes saying nothing.

Then he said, “Listen love, why don’t ye pour yeself a cuppla rums and settle down”.

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you, and have a wonderful night.