<check against delivery>

Thank you, Sunita for your very generous welcome, and also for that splendid history of not just the 40 years of the Diversity Council, but an important history of what's been happening in this country for the last 50 years and beyond. 

I'd also like to thank Stacey for that really beautiful Welcome to Country. 

I also acknowledge the Wurundjeri people as the traditional owners of Naam, and pay respect to their Elders, past and present. I extend that respect to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people joining us today.  

Thank you to our AUSLAN interpreters Brook and Eve.

I particularly want to acknowledge Reggie Cabal - As it is ever year, I know today is bittersweet and full of emotion for you – sadness at the loss of Anna so young but joy, pride and love that her legacy lives on and that we all still celebrate her. 

• Sunita Gloster, Chair, and the board of DCA

• Catherine Hunter, CEO, and the staff from DCA

• Padma Raman, Head of the Office for Women, PM&C

• Mary Wooldridge, Director, Workplace Gender Equality Agency

• Natasha Stott Despoja AO

• Micaela Cronin

• Julie Reilly OAM

• And, of course, the many supporters of the work of the DCA.

 I am so delighted to be back in Melbourne – particularly as we celebrate the 2025 season of AFLW! Where, once again, in Season 11, we are discovering more of the extraordinary players, showing up in their full diversity, thrilling crowds, and inspiring young girls and boys. I’m loving the idea of girls and boys alike being captured by the ‘Centra’ bounce – the shots of the AFL players trying to emulate Ash Centra showed how far we’ve come!

I have spent significant time here in Victoria over the past year – most recently celebrating our Australian of the Year Neale Daniher AO at the Big Freeze, meeting the team at the Man Cave, and spending time with the volunteers at Lifeline. I’ve travelled across the state, and also had a wonderful afternoon at the Big Issue Headquarters not far from here – meeting vendors, and the women who pack the magazine for subscribers.

In fact, if you want the best interview about my role – I feature in this month’s edition of The Big Issue, only a few pages away from a review of Brandon Jack’s memoir of modern manhood as a for Swans Player.

And I have just come from a very special exhibition hosted at Next Wave Brunswick – “Sparks in the Dark”, created by Kat Rae, veteran artist, and Mursai Azizi. This show brings together Afghan women and embroidered artworks representing their resistance, hope for a better future – 208 works representing 208 weeks since the Taliban removed women from Afghan Society. The exhibition is open on the weekend from 11-4.

I want to thank the DCA for inviting me today. 

As a former deputy chair, and now as Patron of the DCA, I am enormously proud of your work. 

The way you convene and inspire in events like this. The breadth of businesses and leaders you bring together. And the rigorous research and evidence base that underpin everything you do. 

I know that after I conclude, you’ll be discussing the most recent DCA research on class, which has been a nation-wide collaboration with significant institutions and organisations, and represents a timely and valuable contribution to inform so many policy debates.

When research outcomes ask us to reconsider things we hold true, the challenge is to tell the story constructively – inviting everyone on the journey.

As Eleanor Roosevelt once so powerfully said in a different context: 

“It depends on what each of us does, what we consider democracy means and what we consider freedom in a democracy means and whether we really care about it enough to face ourselves … and our prejudices and to make up our minds, what we really want our nation to be, and what it’s relationship to the be to the rest of the world.”

Having spent time with the DCA team and corporate members at Admiralty House in Sydney recently, as we celebrated DCA’s 40-year history, I am confident that DCA is in an exceptional position to be that inclusive storyteller.

And, with decades of transformative work, including the trailblazing work of previous Chairs and CEOs, DCA’s voice will continue to encourage us all to shape our nation. 

It is a great honour to be invited to deliver the Anna McPhee Oration.

I have often been in the audience for this event. In 2018, I was here to listen to former Prime Minister Julia Gillard, and again in 2019 when former High Court of Australia Justice Michael Kirby delivered the Oration.

Other eminent Australians have delivered the Oration, including Professor Tom Calma AO, Jess Hill and Stan Grant.

So I am in esteemed company, and I am hoping to add to the golden thread of those previous speakers, all of whom have reflected in their own ways the power of inclusion and belonging in Australian life, and like me, tried to capture something enduring of the extraordinary woman we celebrate with this event – the late Anna McPhee.

We have heard a little about her life and career already. Those of us who knew her well, still miss her deeply.

I came to know Anna after a previous DCA CEO, Nareen Young, brought us together to invite us both to take on board governance roles at the DCA. 

And it was Anna, as Chair of DCA, who taught me about the power of rigor, verve, pragmatism, and persistence in the successful pursuit of diversity at the highest levels, often against the greatest odds.

Long before it was mainstream, Anna was tireless in her demand for diversity. She knew that it wasn’t an experiment, or a signal of virtue. 

In fact, one of her Liberal Party colleagues and friends, former Liberal MP Jason Falinski – whom I spoke with a few days ago in preparing for today – gave a moving condolence motion in the House of Representatives after Anna’s death, in which he described her as “a true Liberal” and “an uncompromising advocate for the advancement of women, at a time before it was welcome, and often to her own detriment.”

He reminded us that Anna “understood better than most that by protecting the rights of the meek she was fighting for the rights and privileges of all people.” 

He credited Anna as “instrumental in ensuring that when the Liberal Party won government in 1996, it was with a record number of female representatives.”

And I particularly admire Jason’s observation that one of her greatest powers was “the way she could bring light to an argument that seemed intractably cloaked in darkness”

During her time as Director of the Equal Opportunity for Women in the Workplace Agency, appointed by former Prime Minister John Howard, Anna argued that “relying on just one half of the available workforce pool does not make business sense.”

She said that “To win the pressing war for talent, business needs to change their notion of the ideal worker [and] change the notion of who can be a leader…  If business is serious about stopping the leakage of talent from within their organisations, they have got to stop fixing the women and start fixing the business environment and culture.”

Anna was nothing if not a persistent, wise trailblazer. She brought her convictions and values to every role she had, across the private sector and in government.

She continued that tireless work as CEO of the Australian Retailers Association.

At its heart, I believe Anna’s conviction was about the success of our nation. She firmly believed that Australia could only succeed when everyone’s talents were respected; when everyone could be effective and productive; and where everyone belonged in our great national story. And her concern for those left out reminds me so much of the work of one of my predecessors, Sir William Deane, who I will speak of later.

So I am feeling deeply honoured today. 

Given Anna’s vision for a diverse, inclusive Australia, today I thought it appropriate to share with you what I have seen, heard and learnt over my first 12 months as your Governor-General about our successful, modern nation.

As you know, I am only the second woman to hold this office. 

I will be forever indebted to Dame Quentin Bryce for being the first, and for generously sharing with me her unique insights about her time in office. A new biography of Dame Quentin is to be published in October, and I’m sure it will offer even more insight, to a much wider audience.

In the months leading up to my swearing-in as your Governor-General, I visited her as I travelled around the country to meet and learn from all the living former Governors-General. 

Collectively, their wise advice, recalling their way of doing things, and what they learned as they travelled throughout this country, helped shape my own arrival into the office. 

I had the opportunity to spend several hours with Sir William Deane, who has lost none of his energy and intellectual rigor at 94. In wishing me well, he asked me always to show compassion and gave me a copy of his slim book ‘A Vision for Australia.’ In its forward, former High Court of Australia Judge, Sir Gerard Brennan reflected that in addition to assenting to legislation passed by the Parliament and exercising the executive powers of the Government, the Governor-General must express and represent the values of our society – by “by experiencing and reflecting the value of our society, a Governor-General interprets the nation to itself.”

Of Sir William Deane’s time in office, he said 

“when the plight of the disadvantaged afforded the basic Australian values of equality and a fair go, the Governor-General’s innate decency and compassion evolved powerful affirmation of these values.”

Together with reflections from communities across the country, it was these insights informed my decision to make care, kindness and respect the unstinting focus of my term.

This is what I meant when I said in my swearing-in speech that 

“Care has a deep and resonant place in our Australian identity… 

… as the gentle thought and the outstretched hand that Australians have always been ready to share when great challenges present themselves; and 

… as the quieter, better part of ourselves." 

Care is central to Australian life, and I have made it central to my work as your Governor-General. 

Somewhat unsurprisingly, but always disappointingly, when my appointment was announced, there were some who felt that not being a military man, or even a man (!), would make it difficult for me to properly discharge the role of Governor-General.

My response to a critique of perceived lack of skills and capability, was the same one I have always given across my career. 

To show up; to understand the role fully; to be understanding and inclusive of those with different views and to give my absolute best every day. 

I had learned very early the lessons of service, respect, community, humility and care, growing up in an Army family. And I have sought to take those values into every role I have had the privilege to hold.

On the day the Prime Minister announced my appointment I simply asked Australians to look further than first impressions, and to remember that we are all so much more than the stereotypes often drawn of us from afar.

Today, I hope that anyone reviewing my first year in office would see two primary things: First, a continuation of tradition and ceremony established and exhibited by my predecessors, deep respect and understanding of the office of Governor-General, its relationship with The Crown, and the constitutional, parliamentary and legal frameworks that circumscribe the responsibilities and powers of the Governor-General.

Secondly and simultaneously, a thoroughly modern approach, informed by experiences of the Australia and Australians I uniquely have the privilege to engage with.  These are not mutually exclusive – in fact, they are reinforcing and strengthen a feature of our democracy.

In practical terms I could describe my year in numbers

• Visiting 25 regions, including in every state and territory – always seeking, as I promised at my swearing-in, to visit places often overlooked and to pay attention to Australians who have much to teach us. And it is often in these visits where I have spent quiet time with those recovering from the devastating consequences of floods, cyclones and drought. Given the sheer volume of these disasters, I’ve committed to making early contact with the mayors of the affected regions to ask them what support they need from me.

• 14 visits to Australian Defence Force bases and exercises, and 7 significant ceremonial parades, graduations and many important opportunities to engage with the Defence service chiefs and emerging ADF leaders.

• many major ceremonial events ranging from the 10th anniversary of the downing of MH17, to sombre commemorations of theatres of war, the extraordinary honour of representing Australia at the 110th anniversary of the Gallipoli landings in Türkiye on Anzac Day, and in Rome at the funeral of Pope Francis.

• seven Australian citizenship ceremonies across the country

• also, celebrating and strengthening our diplomatic relationships – receiving credentials of incomings Ambassadors and High Commissioners, meeting our own diplomats before they take up their posts and visiting seven countries to help celebrate significant diplomatic anniversaries and our connections. Most recently to Singapore to mark the 60th anniversary of our diplomatic relations and Sri Lanka for the first ever visit of a Governor-General to that country after 75 years of relationship.

• Patronage of almost 200 organisations spanning medical research, veterans welfare sports, music and the arts, mental health, women’s safety, education scholarships and more. These relationships are a window into the breadth and depth of care and passion of so many Australians to improve the lives of others.

• Welcoming more than 400 school groups to Government House and visiting dozens of schools around the country.

• hosting more than 140 events at Government House and Admiralty House – from roundtable discussions to the presentation of awards and honours, awarding of scholarships and celebrations of our volunteers and unsung heroes in the community.

• Twenty-seven meetings of Federal Executive Council, two swearing-in ceremonies, the issuing of writs for an election and the opening of the 48th Parliament.

And a number of significant 50th anniversaries: 1975 was a year to remember.

• the birth of the Honours and Awards system

• The first arrival of Vietnamese refugees

• the anniversary that will occupy many in November, 50 years since the dismissal

• the Racial Discrimination Act

• The recovery of Cyclone Tracy

I have also had the immense honour of hosting, with Simeon, the Royal Visit to Australia in October of last year.

The numbers tell you it has been the busiest year of my life – but one that for me is defined by the rare position I find myself in - gaining both a panoramic view of our nation while simultaneously experiencing the fine grain of community wherever I travel. 

But numbers do not reveal the moments that will always define the way in which I am learning about what Australians care about, and why a more modern exercise of my role has become so vitally important. 

Sometimes it is the quiet words of a veteran who implores me to continue to elevate care as a essential value – as I experienced so exquisitely just last Friday night with 12 of the living veterans of WWII as we commemorated the 80th anniversary of VP Day at the Australian War Memorial. 

Sometimes it is the enthusiastic excitement of our young students, who ask for a signed copy of the constitution to carry with them.

These moments, which I experience daily, tell me something that is often not shared with our politicians or significant positions of authority.

In a role without politics, or policies and with no money to give, it is the role of the Governor-General, who represents stability, unbiased, open to all, and with curiosity about all Australians – where hopes can be shared, and where the great stories of our diversity can be witnessed and amplified. 

A role that sees up close the very best of both our nation’s diversity, and the gift of care exercised everyday by so many.

We can and should be immensely proud of what Jason Yat-sen Li – the Assistant Speaker in the NSW Parliament – calls our ‘titanium strength social cohesion.’ 

We all know that around the world there is so much conflict and disunity.

Even here, there are moments when the social fabric seems more fragile than we hope.

But there is real strength – titanium strength – beneath and around those moments.

We can celebrate our diversity in all its richness and history, and embrace it as our identity and future in a region that looks to us, and respects our middle power status. 

In this role, I can see our strength and unity in diversity.

I have seen it not just at the high levels of leadership in Canberra, but everywhere I’ve travelled in Australia, and in the Australians I’ve met overseas.

I’ve seen it in real time, in real places, and in so many ways. 

In fact, my first year in this role has given me a view of Australian life that is so much deeper and richer and more interesting and successful than the stories that seem to dominate the headlines. What I experience, and want to share widely, are the stories of remarkable achievement, cohesion and community strength that we should care about.

They are the stories we all should tell ourselves more often.

In choosing me for this role, and recommending me to the King, the Prime Minister asked me to be modern, visible and optimistic, so I have spent a lot of time reflecting about that first word: modern – while striving always to be visible and optimistic.

Together with my team, I’ve asked myself, what does modernity mean for the Office of Australia’s Governor-General?

I didn’t need to look far. King Charles, who I represent, is the model of a modern king. 

That was so clear when he and Queen Camilla visited Australia last October, and their program reflected our success, diversity and progress. Nothing says ‘modern Australia’ like a royal barbecue in Parramatta or a roundtable for The Queen on domestic and family violence or one on sustainable finance for King Charles.

Ultimately, a modern Governor-General reflects modern Australia – which another one of my predecessors, Sir Zelman Cowen said was the most important part of the role- “reflecting the light and shade of our nation.”

And what my first year has taught me is that modern Australia is a place where tradition and modernity sit comfortably together. 

Where diversity is almost not a big enough word for the multitudes we contain. 

Where people who are migrants, or the children or grandchildren of migrants – and that is now about half our population – prefer to be known simply as ‘Australian.’

Where the hundreds of Sikh Youth I met at their annual camp in January were ready to chant ‘Aussie, Aussie, Aussie!’ when the Australian Cricket Team played India the very same week. There was no question who they were supporting.

It's the picture I see in every group of primary school students that come through Government House. I see it in every community I'm invited to. 

I saw it in Gallipoli, when I met a very diverse bunch of Australians who had made a pilgrimage to Anzac Cove. They looked very different from the crowd that might have gathered on an Anzac dawn of 50 years ago. 

But they were drawn by the story of service and sacrifice that took young Australians across the world 110 years ago. 

I saw it, too, when a Sydney Swans game against Adelaide at the SCG this past May included a celebration of Duanwu, the Chinese dragon boat festival. 

I see it in the citizenship ceremonies I perform. People who are becoming citizens of our country are bringing their extraordinary stories, skills and legacies, just as they are claiming and engaging with the strengths of our democracy and our constitution.

They are aligning themselves with our robust democratic institutions and freedoms, supported by compulsory voting, and our independent electoral commission, and our commitment to civics education.

These are not things to be taken for granted, as many who have become Australians most recently know. 

They are things we need to pay attention to, care about - because we see the consequences in other nations when they falter or fail. Or where citizens cease to care about their civics, institutions and democratic traditions. 

That has been another important lesson from my first 12 months in office. Despite everything I might see, our collective understanding of – 

and therefore ability to actively participate in – civics and institutions is in a dangerously parlous state.

Sir Zelman Cowen described the role as reflecting the light and shade back to the country. I am increasingly seeing it as both reflecting and, by extension, educating. Educating people about my role and the institutions, about the processes and practices that underpin our stable and successful democracy.

If we find it easier to criticise or ignore what is not well understood, then part of the solution has to be communication and transparency. Being open.  Sharing stories. Inviting everyone in.

That’s one of the reasons I’m finding ways of being a modern Governor-General – by using Instagram and social media to clearly explain every facet of my role. To lift the veil on an institution that for many is opaque, or secret, or hidden. 

It’s why I hosted the Parliamentary Press Gallery for dinner at Government House recently and invited all members of the 48th Parliament to a family day on the weekend before parliament opened. 

I am optimistic that explaining the role of the Governor-General, building understanding, showcasing both tradition and modernity, will help people engage with our democracy and feel pride in our institutions in contemporary Australia.

When I was sworn-in, I referred to Noel Pearson’s three-part portrait of our nation. I’ve done so many times since – in fact I discussed it just weeks ago with former Prime Minister Tony Abbott at Government House. He was there to interview me for his upcoming book and documentary about the history of Australia. 

I reference the tripartite story all the time because I see it in action.

I see our newest citizens being deeply moved by the Welcome to Country that is part of their ceremony. 

There is something about being welcomed here as the most recent arrival, by those who were here first. 

There is something about the First Nations’ people having such a visible and powerful connection to land and country that profoundly impacts people who have left their own countries to make their homes in this one. 

I saw this most recently when I travelled to east Arnhem Land. 

One element of that visit was a citizenship ceremony in Nhulunbuy.

It’s hard to imagine anywhere more remote, and yet here were 10 people, from different nationalities, taking their oath of citizenship, and being welcomed with a Bunggul led by Witiyana Marika.

There were two other elements to that trip that brought home to me the braided strength of Australia’s story and history of diversity.

One was the posthumous investiture of Dr G. Yunupingu with the highest civilian honour in our country – the AC.

We were welcomed on Gumatj land, surrounded by his family, who led the ceremony as they accepted this recognition from our national honours and awards system, which is in its 50th year this year. 

It was important to us, and an expression of care, that we were guided by the family’s own wishes and traditions in bestowing that award. 

Equally we responded to another family’s wishes, which happened first, the posthumous presentation of the Victoria Cross for Australia to the family of Private Richard Norden. Private Norden performed an act of supreme courage during the Vietnam War, and later served in the Australian Federal Police. He died tragically in a traffic accident as a Canberra police officer, when he was only 24.

His VC has been a long time coming, but his family, who now live in Rockhampton, were overjoyed to receive recognition from the country that he served with such bravery.

On our journey to present those awards, I observed Exercise Talisman Sabre in Rockhampton, one of our largest, most significant Defence exercises.

These four events, within one week, summed up for me the unique character of modern Australia.

A police and military veteran and war hero, his wife and children and grandchildren surrounded by other veterans and by the strength and camaraderie of their wider military family. 

A First Nations leader of such impact and consequence to our nation, and to his own people and place.

A group of people from all over the world, choosing Australia, adding their gifts and aspirations to our vibrant Australian story.

In one week, I saw the beauty and strength of all this.

And my reflection was that these are the stories we need to tell.

The stories we hear too often focus on division and discord.

I am seeing a very different picture.

Through my engagements, and through our social media, we are trying to tell more of the other stories. The stories about care, kindness and respect. The best stories. 

Not because they’re consoling or distracting.

But because they’re true.

Australia really does have great stories to tell, and I feel privileged to be one of the tellers – and a listener with a front row seat. In a way, that’s the ‘visible’ part of what the Prime Minister asked me to be.

There’s a kind of feedback loop at the centre of my role. What I see and hear around Australia becomes the centre of my reflections back to Australians. 

I have made it a focus of my term to elevate care, kindness and respect.

And what I have found is that they are, in fact, everywhere, already.

My part in the story is to name them and encourage those who are living them, and bring back to everyone else the story of their power. 

And when I talk about care, I am not talking about something soft, or vague. 

I am talking about care as something much more hard-edged.

The kind of care that means showing up, working hard, staying the course.

As one carer put it in a letter to me, seeing care not as a private burden but as a public good.

Care as something rigorous and accountable. 

Care for the integrity and sustainability of our institutions. Care for excellence and progress.

This kind of care is at the heart of our productivity discussion. It's the heart of our success. It's the heart of our defence relations. 

I see that as Commander-in-Chief, and when I visit the modern defence force on bases around the country, and overseas. 

It’s in our international relationships, which are the product of skilled and dedicated work by Australian women and men, working on our behalf, often living far from home for years at a time. 

I have met them in Türkiye, Egypt, and the UAE; in Singapore and Sri Lanka. 

Care is central to our cultural and scientific institutions. Our thinkers and innovators. Our community leaders and local governments. 

I see it in our Australian honors and bravery awards. I see it in every volunteer organization I’m patron of.

The last piece of care that I always talk about is care for the way we discuss the tough issues. We are discussing a lot of tough issues, and increasingly find that we're at our very best as modern Australia when we can accept difference of opinion, and not reject one another as people.

The more we get to meet each other and understand how fundamental are the things that unite us, as opposed to where we came from or what our background is, the stronger we will be. 

That's what I've learned about modern Australia.

That is what I see, and it’s the story I tell. 

That brings me to the last thing the Prime Minister asked me to be.

And, in a way, it’s the easiest.

Optimistic.

Although I do recognize that the light and the shade coexist in Australia and there is still much to be done to reconcile diversity and difference of opinion in so many aspects of Australian life, I remain enthusiastically optimistic about who we are, and where we are going. 

How much better we are now than we used to be at making sure everyone belongs. 

My optimism today is, of course, tinged with sadness – that my friend Anna did not live to see the modern Australia she always hoped for. 

I would have loved to share with her everything I see when I travel this country, meeting our people, in all their magnificent diversity. 

But I trust Jason Falinski was right when he said so beautifully, closing his condolence motion, “While we will all miss Anna, in truth she will not leave this mortal coil while those of us left, keep her alive in our memories.”