Speech delieverd on 19 March 2025 at the Australian National University
Good morning, everybody.
Thank you, Paul, for what is always an important and special welcome to your Country.
When I was growing up in Canberra, it was your mother, Matilda, who welcomed us to Country.
Matilda House was the person that taught me about Country.
Simeon and I saw Matilda recently at a Welcome to Country at Parliament House, and we talked about her life, family.
And so just to be here with you this morning, Paul, to have you welcome us to Ngunnawal Ngambri Canberra land, and to help us understand more, is so important.
For me, I want to acknowledge your people and the people of this land, those that have always had connection to this land.
And second, I would thank you, Paul, for coming and joining us at Government House, when we first moved in, to tell us that story of the history of the land that we now have the privilege of staying on and working on -- you gave us history and stories and community.
I also acknowledge all of the extraordinary First Nations, Aboriginal, Torres Strait Islander people who are here with us this morning.
Professor Genevieve Bell AO, President and Vice Chancellor the ANU, I think you just gave us a stupendous introduction to your philosophy and the work that you do here.
But what I like is that Simeon Beckett, my husband, and I get to be here together for this, and I can see you sitting there together, and I'm imagining you as those feral kids, because I've heard all those stories from Simeon’s dad, in particular, when he was still alive.
And Simeon’s father, Jeremy Beckett, came here too. He was an anthropologist, like your mum, Genevieve, and they were the parents of feral kids who all grew up to do remarkable things.
I think of your trajectory, having been brought up around books and learning, smart people, people debating things, who then were respecting Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.
And I had no knowledge of that as a child growing up, and I have often talked about that with Simeon, and I think with Genevieve, about the gift that you had that many of us did not, and it was evident today. I talk to Simeon about the absences and gaps in my history of understanding of this country. And I'm very lucky that I'm married to Simeon, and that he joins me in the role of Governor-General, in his newfound life as His Excellency.
Today, he's here as a friend and a colleague, and I’ll share some of Sim’s recollection of Dr O’Donoghue in a moment.
Deb, it's wonderful to see you, and wonderful to see you here with your daughter Ruby.
We've known each other for a while, but more particularly recently, with your visits to Government House for us to talk about Dr O’Donoghue’s legacy, the Foundation, and to anticipate today.
So, it's wonderful to be here with you.
And I haven’t been able to take my eyes off Dr O’Donoghue in all the forms here, both above me and around. And there's just so much love in these pictures. And I hope, as a family, that you feel that, too.
Deb just shared with me a photo, which we're going to digitally recreate and bring back to life, of Dr O’Donoghue visiting Government House. It looks as if it's probably from the 1990s, it's beautiful.
I also want to acknowledge:
- The members of the Dr O’Donoghue Foundation
- Professor Tom Calma AO, Fellow of the Senate of the University of Sydney, and with a long association with the University of Canberra
- The academics, professional staff, students and everyone today who is a distinguished guest – particularly the students, it's wonderful to have you here to see this happening. These are very important moments for you to bear witness to as well.
So, as I said, I'm just delighted to be here.
I am Australia's first Canberra-born Governor General, and also the first to have graduated from the Australian National University -- so I always celebrate every opportunity to visit this campus.
When I'm here, I do always cherish a feeling of profound nostalgia prompted by the memories of my time at ANU as undergraduate doing an arts law degree.
I did my degree part-time because I worked full-time as a research assistant to the Chief Magistrate of the ACT at the time, Ron Cahill.
So, I had a longer time here because I spread my degree over a longer period. I also walked across the campus to the Magistrates Court and the Children's Court. So, I got to feel the campus a lot, and many things are unrecognisable to me from when I was here in the 1980s – I started in 1983.
But I do love coming back to this campus, and no better day than today to do that.
I always see something now that reminds me of the time I spent here.
Universities are full of tremendous optimism.
They really are.
And despite the pressures on the university systems, it's the people at these places that lead me to be buoyed by that optimism.
Watching the current students moving across the campus, I see them filling it with their new energy and vitality, and I'm uplifted by that promise of the future, as you are, too, Genevieve.
I'm so delighted that there are some GO scholars that I got to meet -- First Nations young people at university, in part because of scholarships from the Goodes O’Loughlin Foundation, which I did not see when I was here in the 1980s.
But now, to see a thriving community of students and a broad variety of multicultural students, the picture of Australia that we now live in emerging across this campus fills me with great optimism.
It’s part of my job as Governor-General to make sure I bring visibility to that.
Today, Simeon and I are particularly buoyed and uplifted by this significant moment of recognition.
As Genevieve has said, we are here this morning because naming has a transformative power.
As you've said before, Genevieve, when we sing the names of those who come before us, we don't just celebrate their achievements, we preserve their legacy.
From Sydney's Barangaroo or Melbourne's Chrissy Amphlett Lane, and the Sir John Monash Centre at Villers-Bretonneux, uttering the name of extraordinary people, breathes life into their stories and honours their contribution to the life of our nation, and not just while they were alive.
And, so it is with Yankunytjatjara woman, the late Dr Lowitja O’Donoghue AC CBE DSG.
And, before I move on, I wanted to acknowledge one of her closest friends, Pat Anderson AO. Pat, I couldn't imagine us being here to honour Dr O'Donoghue without you in the front row. Apart from being a friend of so many here, and a dear friend of mine, I know that you're one of the closest people to Dr O’Donoghue, along with the family, and that you spent much time with her in her last days in Adelaide, where she finally rested. And your friendship has always guided me in terms of what does a friendship look like, and I know how much you miss her, as her family does, but I wanted to acknowledge that it's wonderful to have you here as such an important part of Dr O’Donoghue’s story, but also your own story, and one that has helped guide us, particularly in recent years, with matters that involve the country and hopes that we have had to involve the whole country in this story. I feel buoyed by just having you here as well, it's wonderful to see you.
Today, we offer our deepest respect to Dr O’Donoghue, for her immense leadership and her lifetime of service.
I'm also mindful of her response, when she was first told of the plans back in the day to found the Lowitja Institute. She said at the time, she ‘regressed to the 12-year-old Lowitja of the Colebrook Home’ and answered with ‘No way … I’m not worthy’.
But, of course, she was, and she always will be.
Dr O'Donoghue often said that to be a woman and an Aboriginal in our society is to be doubly disadvantaged.
And she was right.
So Sim and I are humbled to be here today to honor and celebrate Dr O'Donoghue for all that she was -- an Aboriginal woman and a leader whose legacy continues to transform our nation.
And it's a particular privilege to be, as I said, with so many of you who were so important to her in her life -- family, friends, academics, leaders, those who completed her life, I think, and for whom she completed your lives.
Pride of place in my study at Government House in Yarralumla is a treasured copy of Stuart Rintoul’s biography of Dr O’Donoghue.
Deb gave that to me not long after my swearing-in as your Governor-General last year.
Now, as it turns out, I already had copies of that book, but that one was particularly special, and that's the one that sits in my office.
But for some time since its publication, I've been presenting that book to others wherever I can.
It was a privilege to present the book to Governor-General Mary Simon, Canada's first indigenous Governor-General, when Simeon and I met with her in Paris during the 2024 Paralympics in September last year.
And then I gave a copy of the book to departing US Ambassador to Australia, Caroline Kennedy, who had not seen the book before and was taking it under her arm to read on the plane.
Dr O'Donoghue’s influence was not confined to a particular place or people.
Her insight, wisdom and conviction was felt here in Australia and around the world, and whether she was speaking and working at Parliament House in Canberra, or at the Warakurna Roadhouse in South Australia, or addressing the UN in Geneva or New York, or speaking to scholars in Guangzhou, Dr O'Donoghue brought fierce determination, principled negotiation, imagination, patience and generosity to all of her words and deeds.
I asked Simeon to give me a few notes that I could share on his behalf about how he would describe his experience of Dr O'Donoghue and a very particular time in our history. And he said that he had the immense pleasure as a young man working with her when she was the inaugural Chair of ATSIC. He was able to sit and see the immense power of her leadership when she led the ‘A Team’, which successfully negotiated the Native Title Act, and undertook the difficult negotiations up on the hill that were highly contested even within government. Simeon was able to observe Dr O’Donoghue’s leadership from his position working for the then Minister for Indigenous Affairs, Robert Tickner, and saw the unique power of Dr O’Donoghue, and experienced her incredible warmth for all people, no matter how young or old or how high or low, including himself. He felt as welcome to her as a prime minister, as a senior elder, and only very special people convey that in their presence. And Simeon, I think you're very lucky to have had that early in your life.
Above all, she spoke with powerful insight and appreciation for the braided strength we find in the three chapters of our national story, which I tell wherever I go in the country or around the world. It's of absolute fundamental importance that starts with 65,000 years of continuous Indigenous history and culture and attachment to this continent; then the strength of our democracy and institutions of government, of which I now represent at the level of the representative of the head of state; and our modern chapter of belonging and progress, underpinned and intertwined with those first two elements by remarkable multiculturalism.
Now, the motto of this mighty University asks us to first learn the nature of things.
I would add, as a corollary, that it is the nature of the university to seek transformation through understanding.
Speaking at the 2022 ANU commencement proceedings, Cabrogal woman Mikaela Jade – entrepreneur, 2023 ACT Australian of the Year nominee, and graduate of the ANU College of Engineering and Computer Science -- spoke of transformation as the gift of education and the cornerstone of her culture since time began. She said this,
‘our sacred and beautiful country constantly teaches us of change. The mountains change into valleys, the river changes into the city. Our warriers transform into crows to keep a watchful eye on our country and our elders transform into black cockatoos, who echo across the landscape to remind us of our responsibility to Country and to each other.’
With her deep understanding of First Nations history and her compassionate and urgent care for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people across the country, Dr O’Donoghue believed that education has the same transformative power. And in her words,
‘our personal sense of wellbeing is dependent on the extent to which we relate to a collective sense of identity. The two are inextricably linked. It is for this reason that education and the fruits of education, things like tolerance, fairness, equality, commitment to justice, are so important.’
It is only right then that, together, with a lot of love, in this place of learning, innovation, modernity and optimism, we celebrate again the fruits of education that Dr O’Donoghue prized so highly.
Now, there have been many times in recent months where I felt an absence.
I felt it in a particular way when I had the enormous privilege of signing the historic deed of grant to the Wakaya-Alyawarre Aboriginal Land Trust, and witnessing the joy of those who have for so long sought just compensation, and who, only last week, received confirmation by the High Court of Australia upholding their compensation claim to the lands that were taken and now belong to others.
I mourn our loss of Dr O’Donoghue’s wisdom and clarity in those moments, because both the handing back of the land trust and acknowledgement of compensation for past deeds is something I wish Dr O’Donoghue had been alive to witness.
They are both very big moments.
I hope there are many more big moments, but I'm sad that Dr O'Donoghue did not live long enough to see those wonderful moments in our country's capability and potential.
These are things that she would have quietly accepted as right and just.
So the Lowitja O'Donoghue Cultural Centre is a powerful tribute to Dr O'Donoghue and a reminder that, as we journeyed with her in her life, we all now have a responsibility to uphold and advance her unwavering commitment to justice, dialogue, understanding and reconciliation, and there's no better place to do that than in the Lowitja O’Donaghue Cultural Centre today. Thank you, everybody.