I'd like to acknowledge the Cammeraygal as the traditional owners of this spectacular land that we are on. We're looking over to Gadigal land, and it's on an afternoon like this it's often a moment's reflection of Gadigal, Cammeraygal, what was happening here long before there were buildings, and those that came afterwards. Just how beautiful this harbor is, and how special it is, and the amount of custodianship it took to maintain this for all of us to this day.  

So, I always pay my respects to Elders, past and present, and if there are any Aboriginal peoples or other people here, you're very welcome, and I pay respects to you as well.  

Kate's done a few of the introductions of those over here. I agree with her. You are all distinguished guests. I wish you could see the view from here because it's distinguished guests and the rest.  

It's quite splendid to look out to the harbour, but of course the Honourable Mark Dreyfus, KC MP Special Envoy for International Human Rights, such an important role – particularly right now, Mark. It's wonderful to see you here.

Kate, of course – Kate Jenkins AO as president of the Australian Red Cross. Thank you for the energy you've brought to this role and its interconnection with so many other things that you do and the members of your board and team do. I see a number of Kate's relationships here.  

I think I could see Kieran Perkins OAM from the Australian Sports Commission, the CEO. There he is. There's all these lovely connections of other community groups that come from leaders bringing connections and ensuring that we don't ever miss an opportunity to work together.

Claire Rogers, of course, as the board chair. We got the memo, and I know that Kate pre-arranged all of this so we wouldn't all be in red, so we could do a little bit of good planning. So that's worked brilliantly today.  

Penny Harrison, Interim Chief Executive Officer; Cath Stone, Executive Director of Donor Engagement and Experience from the Australian Red Cross Lifeblood, and I'll say a bit about Lifeblood in a minute as a regular donor. It's another part of the whole Red Cross story that is so important; It's nice to see Professor Brendan Murphy AC here, Chair of Lifeblood, an extraordinary, distinguished career in areas that got us through many things, particularly pandemics. But it's wonderful to have you here; Hugh de Kretser, President of the Australian Human Rights Commission.  

There are many, many more of you. There are some very significant people here from local government, from state government, from other organisations. And I would like to call out Melanie Oppenheimer for your new book on the history of the international Red Cross movement. You've done your first book on Australian Red Cross, and it's always important to have someone capturing all of this. And your books are here today, so thank you for doing that.  

Kate has said it – you are all distinguished. I think sometimes the most distinguished here are the volunteers, the staff, the members, those that actually do the hard work and bring us to this point.  

We say here at Admiralty House that this is a place of peace where everyone is welcome, and of course that is the case today. It's especially fitting to gather such an extraordinary, broad range of people who are humanitarians, who are generous, who actually care about this country very, very deeply in your own way, but collectively for Australian Red Cross today.

I wanted to let you know that as you come into this house, as you look in the foyer, you'll see that we've moved the art around here. We brought new art in from the National Gallery of Australia. All of the art around the house is there for you to explore. All of the ground floor rooms are open after we've finished with the formalities, and you've had a bit more time out on that beautiful, beautiful croquet lawn. But these are paintings and artifacts and books that tell the story of our country.  

The one that greets you as you come in is by the magnificent painter, Paddy Bedford. He was a favourite of former Governor-General Sir William Deane. He spent a lot of time with him while he was alive, and that's a men's healing pocket painting. It's a nice way to arrive with a sense of healing. I think you understand that more than most the sense of calm that is required on arrival that welcomes absolutely everybody here.  

Now, I'm very honoured to be able to provide you with a lovely venue for today's strategy launch and discussion, but I'm even more proud to be your patron. Kate, your question to me was: why did being your patron matter to me? Why did I say yes? It's a pretty easy answer if you haven't guessed it already. When I was sworn in as your Governor-General almost two and a half years ago, I committed to putting care, kindness, and respect at the centre of everything that we will do here in this Office. And those values, amongst others, have always been at the heart of Australian Red Cross.  

Now, the last two years and a bit, you have given me opportunities to see your work very up close. I've been learning from you. You've shared your stories with me. In fact, Kate and the team came in and we had a discussion about strategy at one point to see what else we all were seeing collectively that might help with the current discussion on social cohesion and to ensure that we hold that great sense of community across the country.  

You always go where the need is greatest, with an extraordinary breadth of support for Australians who need it most through heatwaves, bushfires, floods. And then when people have lost everything, not because of a physical issue like the weather, but where there've been unimaginable moments of terror when communities are shaken to their core, you go there, too.  

In evacuation and recovery centres – I've visited them in Lismore and Taree, and in southeast Queensland – I've watched your teams calmly and professionally take people who are in many, many different forms of stress and trauma through the complex processes of recovery. When their life has been turned upside down, just knowing where to begin will often be overwhelming for those people in our community, and it's the Red Cross turning up to help people understand that someone cares about them, and there is a moment of peace and certainty.  

You give them a sense of what they need to do for insurance, for government services, for their medical support, and so much more. How they're going to rebuild their houses. You explain what form they need to fill in. It's a very simple thing for people who are in absolute tragic circumstances. They look to you, and they always look for your uniform and to know that someone cares deeply, and you always provide the right person, and you always offer the right next step for those that need it.  

I mentioned already about terrible tragedies that shake us to our core – and, of course, that horrific antisemitic attack at Bondi. The value of Red Cross at that moment was inestimable. The immediate arrival after that despicable act in the immediate aftermath was truly extraordinary.  

You were there in that aftermath, as messy and as tragic and as terrible as that was. You were in the temporary space at the North Bondi RSL Club, just set up very quickly, and then you became central to the work for the Relief and Recovery Centre. I know there are other parts of that Recovery Centre, particularly state and local government, who are here, who know what that was. And I went to that centre. I went both to the Bondi RSL Club and then to the Relief Centre when it was set up. There was just profound grief and distress in those places, and it was your staff and volunteers, alongside the other agencies that were there, who offered that calm, caring presence.  

Alongside psychological first aid, your teams provided very practical support as they do whether it was a flood or fire. This time it was a very different kind of catastrophe. They listened carefully. They understood what people needed and helped them find support. You did all that without questioning and not worrying, not putting any extra stress on the people who needed you most.  

What stays with me whenever I see the value of what you do – and why I'm proud to be your patron – is how much it matters for people, all people at all times, but in those moments to be heard, to know they're listened to and understood, and not be questioned or undermined or put in a difficult situation.  

You become that point of connection in a community most often. People turn to you; they trust you in a world where we don't know who to trust. They trust the Red Cross, and you then go and find the help from where they couldn't find it themselves. Those relationships that happen in those communities where you turn up are often built long before you come across them or before we actually need them. That depends on deep local knowledge and preparation and care for the way communities are consulted and respected.  

I know I'm beginning to get into the territory of your new strategy, so I'll not go too much further. But it's your understanding that you can't just arrive to a community and expect the community to respond to you. It's about bringing people together who already have connection and know that they have strength in their own community, but need it further strengthened by the arrival of the Red Cross and others. That is so compelling in what you do.  

It reflects something that I see wherever I travel across Australia. It's strong, connected communities who trust one another, who are better able to prepare, respond, and recover, even for the very worst outcomes. Particularly if the services then come to help support, know where those trusted relationships are, and tap into them, and trust them, and defer to local knowledge, and not bring the knowledge from the centre, but actually listen to what's happening on the ground.  

And I know that same spirit extended beyond Australia. I've met the local Red Cross chair in Mongolia. I've met your colleagues across the Pacific, and last October, together with Kate, we welcomed senior Red Cross leaders from across our region to Government House in Canberra.  

Those encounters helped me and my team appreciate how the Australian Red Cross is part of the wider international Red Cross and Red Crescent movement. And across that movement, people have their own communities and work together to relieve suffering wherever it is found, guided by the same commitment to humanity. True humanitarianism.  

And in April, this just goes to show the breadth and the sophistication of the work that has always been going on at Government House, I was just delighted and honoured to meet Florence Nightingale medallists, Anne-Maree Furner and Jean-Philippe Miller, JP, I think he's known to you all, for extraordinary humanitarian nursing, including their work for the International Committee of the Red Cross in Gaza.  

Anne-Maree had worked alongside local health professionals caring for patients with just extraordinary, desperately limited supplies. She also spoke about seeking out people who fall through the cracks in those moments, or are made invisible for whatever reason, so that those most in need would be seen by her and by the International Red Cross. JP worked alongside local colleagues at the Red Cross Field Hospital in Rafah, and he cared for desperately wounded patients, including children, as that hospital faced repeated mass casualty emergencies.

The work in that field demands clinical excellence, compassion, and the most immense moral and physical courage. That willingness to see people in their full humanity, uphold their dignity and act with compassion – I don't just see it in the International Red Cross, I see it at the centre of the Australian Red Cross and everyone associated with it.  

Now, many Australians don't know about all that work, but they do know about Lifeblood, another pathway in place where volunteering takes on a completely different dimension. I don't think many of your Lifeblood clients actually think of themselves as volunteers, but that is what they are doing. They're giving their time and precious blood to ensure the health of other citizens. They will never know where that blood ends up. They never know who's received that gift. That’s why, I'm a regular donor and try to amplify blood donation wherever I go, and bring on my Aides-de Camp, and we try and make a bit of a thing of it, post about it, and have fun with it, to try to encourage more and more Australians to give blood.  

In fact, when I dropped in on the York Street centre immediately after the call out for blood donations and gave blood myself, that day, 50,000 donation appointments were booked. The very day after the Bondi attack, and you could see that right across the country.  

What I tried to do with our team was ensure that those first timers became regular donors. I hope that worked for most, because we need them to do that. The thing I found most interesting was the feedback on the socials about my blood, saying, ‘Can you imagine the Governor-General's blood?’ I didn't think of that in that context, but I'll keep giving, like not knowing where it's going.  

The atmosphere there as well is quite interesting because it's as steeped in humanitarianism and people being brought together and cared for as they were turning that moment of grief and concern into action. But those that turn up at every centre around the country and the regulars and the stories that are told, are always handled by your staff and your teams and volunteers who are showing up to make sure that experience feels great and encourages us to keep doing it.  

You give the community in so many ways a sense to express solidarity and care, and it's why, in part, you're the reason I have a big Lucy Culliton painting in the study that I want you to go and see. It's called Hand Knit Toy. Lucy is a magnificent artist, extraordinary. But her painting epitomizes all the unsung work done by those that spend time.  

I'm sent many of these things and knitted things that raise money for every kind of charity in the country, millions, tens of millions of dollars, and I see that as unsung work. That's why the painting is in the office, in the most significant part of the house, so that people can look at that and remember. We often don't see those heroes that do the unsung work, and I reckon that's the same impulse that sits at the heart of Australia's Red Cross.  

Across your work, the instinct takes many forms. You pay attention to what a person needs, and you find a way to help. So, it's a very simple answer, Kate. I've spent a lot of time getting to the point… Everything you do, how you do it, who you do it with, your partnerships, and the people who are here supporting you today reflects what I believe is at the centre of our society, the Australian society.  

It is the social and human infrastructure that holds us together: care, kindness, respect, generosity, the values of humanitarianism, of selflessness, and of making no judgment and restoring people's dignity.  

I want to thank your staff, your board members, your volunteers, the members, the donors, everyone who's here today. You make this work possible alongside the team at Red Cross. I want to congratulate you on the launch of your very ambitious strategy. It cuts into something I think you all understand and are willing to hold dear at the moment: not letting stories of division or fraying social cohesion become what we expect, and actually pushing back with hope and with the story of community, of love, of care, and of kindness. And as your patron, that's what I see.  

It's a privilege to see that work, to share your stories, and to always encourage others to come along and understand why you are such a fundamental part of what makes this country great.

So, Kate, I am very proud to be your patron, and even prouder to hand back to you to tell us your strategy.