Speech

ADDRESS BY

HER EXCELLENCY MS QUENTIN BRYCE AC

GOVERNOR-GENERAL OF THE COMMONWEALTH OF AUSTRALIA

ON THE OCCASION OF

THE MENZIES FOUNDATION 30TH ANNIVERSARY DINNER

MELBOURNE

12 NOVEMBER 2009

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

I am really delighted to join you here this evening in celebrating thirty years of The Menzies Foundation: your vital contribution to medical and allied health research – I know that only last month your Hobart Institute announced an exciting break through in its study of prostate cancer genetics; your research is critical to disease prevention, and our understanding of human health and wellbeing, in particular of indigenous Australians and those living in tropical and remote regions; your support for the developing health policy and participation of Australians in its robust debate and advocacy; the role of the annual Menzies Oration in public discussion of higher education policy and practice; and,  through the esteemed Menzies fellowship and scholarships, your encouragement of academic excellence.

The Foundation is indeed a catalyst for achievement  in our country, and I feel privileged as your Patron to share this significant birthday – one that acknowledges the promise of your youth and the wisdom of your experience.

As to the latter, you draw on a great deal in the life of the man in whose honour your efforts continue.

Mr Menzies – as my father always respectfully referred to him – had an important place in our sitting room.  
 
Our family gathered around the wireless in the evenings to listen to his interviews, speeches and weekly broadcasts.

Back then, in the 40s and 50s, we lived in Ilfracombe, a small town in central western Queensland.

It’s at the heart of sheep and cattle grazing country, and, in the 40s and 50s, the land grew some of the best wool in the world.

It was hot and stark and brown.    The goats everyone kept for milk chewed out the scrub.
 
And you couldn’t grow trees or gardens, though my mother made a mighty fist of it every year.

There was, until the early 50s, no sewerage, no electricity, and no reticulated water.

But it was home. And for a lot of people that’s where they stayed.

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 one house.

It was a close-knit community.    People had an 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.

Despite the blight occasioned by two world wars and a depression,   they shared a resolve to make life better for their kids.

There was,   as well,   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.

Dad took his responsibilities very seriously – he loved the wool industry.

Alongside photographs of Sir Winston Churchill and Mr Menzies in his office,   he had a sign that read  “Be brief, be businesslike, be gone” – a juxtaposition that was amusing to some,   and no doubt provocative to others!

Both my parents – indeed all of those around me in that small town – were great believers in self-instruction,   participation,   giving back,   and making the best of what you had.

“Doing your best”,   as Menzies would say, “taking praise,   blame,   love and hatred all in your stride”

Sir Robert Menzies was also of course a deep and incisive thinker, a philosopher and political scientist, a master of language and powerful orator.

He deftly applied these skills and talents to deliver himself and his convictions to the Australian public;   and to define,   what decades later became,   the charter and mandate of the Menzies Foundation.

Ever since those early years in Ilfracombe,  my fondness for radio has never waned.

ABC’s Radio National is a favourite of mine.    I recall an interview a couple of years ago on the Lingua Franca program with Judith Brett,   who has written extensively on Menzies’ political career.

She reminded me of some of that well-known rhetoric,   but more importantly for tonight,   Menzies’ belief in the value of ambition,   a liberal education and the contribution of art,   literature and science to civilised life.

Your Virtual Museum is a wonderful repository of Menzies’ essays and speeches – the closing paragraphs of his address to the Australian Medical Conference in Hobart in March 1958 are particularly instructive:

As we look forward,   Menzies offered,   we are not to allow our education of new generations to be distorted.

More scientists; more scholars; more scholarly scientists; more scientific scholars; more historians and philosophers and poets.

For if science is truly to serve the cause of civilisation it will be because the people to use the advances of science have grown to use them in a civilised way.

Not all the most brilliant successes in laboratories and factories and fields will make a nation great if it has failed to enthrone the human spirit and to set about it with knowledge, and justice, and patience and understanding.

Friends, our world is afflicted like never before by poverty and hunger; conflict, terrorism and violence; widening gaps in wealth and development;  changes to climate and the effects of human consumption;  new and aggressive viruses, bacteria and cancers;  and their adverse consequences to human and animal health, patterns of human habitation, our natural environment and resources, and our capacity to equitably sustain life and modern living on the planet.

Knowledge has also reached unprecedented levels, as have our means of accessing and acquiring it.

Last month Nobel Prizes were awarded to scientists and physicists whose discoveries will affect the lives of millions of ordinary people.

Professor Elizabeth Blackburn became Australia’s first female Nobel laureate for her findings into how chromosomes are copied and protected when cells divide, and what happens when the process goes wrong.

This expertise will have important implications for the early diagnosis and treatment of certain cancers, diseases of ageing, and stress-related diseases.

At one level, ladies and gentlemen, we must be attuned to innovation, opportunity and lateral approaches to unconventional problems.

And at another, we must know the value of hard-earned wisdom and experience, and apply them well.

I have observed that Australians are very good at this: our clear,   pragmatic vision;  our belief in what serves us well,   and what therefore deserves our protection;  and our capacity for change,   to overcome adversity, and to balance tradition with renewal.

It’s an openness in thinking and a toughness of spirit that not only ensures we cope;   it produces results,   achievements, solutions to complex problems.

We see in our management of natural disasters;   our military,  peacekeeping,  and humanitarian operations;   the work of our carers and volunteers;   our ground-breaking farming techniques,   water technologies and climate expertise.

You well know,   we see it too in our medical and scientific research and the clinicians and scholars who lead it out – some of whom are with us tonight.   I will shortly have the honour of shaking their hands.

Ladies and gentlemen, The Menzies Foundation is a fine guardian and nurturer of Australian achievement.   
You have inspired our scientists and humanists and encouraged each to be touched by the other.   

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And you have set about to install the human spirit with knowledge,   justice, patience and understanding.

On behalf of all Australians I sincerely thank you for your generous undertaking.