With acknowledgments omitted

To begin, as you have done, I will give a visual description of who I am tonight.

I stand at about five foot 11, a little bit more with heels. I’ve just turned 60, so I have grey hair. I have black rim glasses.  

The most important thing that you’ll notice about me tonight is my shirt. I’ve worn it very specially. This shirt is from the Social Outfit. 

I wore a suit that was designed and made by the Social Outfit for my swearing-in ceremony.  

The Social outfit is a registered charity in New South Wales that operates a work integration social enterprise, where their mission is to support refugee women to kick-start their Australian careers via their manufacturing studio and a retail clothing store.  

They’d never made a suit before, and I thought it was appropriate. I encourage them, and I encourage all women who like to wear a good suit to look at the Social Outfit.  

But what I’m wearing is the annual print that is created by the refugee and migrant women at the heart of the Social Outfit.  

It’s an act of belonging on their behalf, because all of the other fabrics that the Social Outfit uses come from other fashion houses.  

They don’t buy any other fabric. They use dead stock fabric. So, they’re also sustainable, and ethical, taking care of those who’ve recently arrived and giving them a career.  

But once a year, the team at the Social Outfit speaks to a group of the women who have come from all over the world, and they create a community print. And I’m wearing the 2025, community print, and it’s the ‘Diya’ print because it features large scale floral artwork.

Each petal is painted by a woman from the Chester Hill Community Hub in Sydney, representing cultural backgrounds from Pakistan, Egypt, Colombia, Macedonia, Lebanon and Thailand.

‘Diya’ means light - a symbol of new beginnings.

I wear it as an act of solidarity with a social enterprise that supports those have just recently arrived.

I also wear it because underneath all these glorious floral patterns is a very simple idea: that the women would paint their story into the shirt, and so I’m wearing their stories tonight to let them know that they belong.  

I also want to thank Uncle Bill Nicholson and the Wurundjeri people, the traditional owners of this wonderful land that we’re on. I want to pay respects to their elders, past and present. I want to acknowledge all First Nations people in the audience, and there are many.  

I really want to thank the Brotherhood for inviting me to give this year’s Sambell Oration on ‘Belonging in Australia.’ I want to thank the Brotherhood in its entirety for your dedication and care every single day, striving for an Australia without poverty.

I want to return to Uncle Bill Nicholson’s welcome.

I always believe that the act of welcome from a First Nations Elder is, in itself, a significant act of both care and belonging, and of great kindness,

At Government House in Canberra – and we also do this at Admiralty House in Sydney – the welcomes from the Ngunnawal Elders are now one of the most important features of how we represent belonging in our ceremonial events.  

And they are all very important ceremonial events.  

An example is the credentialing of our new Ambassadors and High Commissioners.  

They’re very special events to welcome someone that represents another nation in this country.  

The representatives of those nations are often only just arriving in Australia.  

They’ve been in Canberra for just a few days, and they come to Government House to present their credentials to me, upon which I then declare them to be their country’s representatives.  

And because of only being in Australia a few days, we decided that we would encourage a welcome ceremony. That would mean the first thing that they would learn about welcomes in Australia, was that they came from First Nations Elders.

So, for many of them, it was the first time that they will walk through smoke and enter a house smelling of eucalyptus. They’re welcomed with such generosity and understanding of the deep history of our country, it’s always wonderful to see. It’s always a topic of conversation after the credentialing ceremonies.  

Most recently, though, I have also seen the impact of these welcomes at citizenship ceremonies, which I also now have the great honour of presiding at, along with many others around the country who know what it is like to officially bring someone in as an Australian citizen. It’s a spine-tingling moment.  

Those ceremonies remind me of the kindness and care manifested in a First Nations welcome. And our newest citizens are always actively engaged in that moment with the oldest continuous culture on the planet.  

It’s a very special moment to witness. It’s a pin-drop moment. New citizens always pay deep attention. Because they know, in receiving it, what the impact is. They’ve been told that they belong, despite starting in some other country, in some other land, and however they came here – in that moment, they belong.

I want to start by sharing a story that’s connected to this. Since becoming your Governor General, I’ve wanted to ensure that the official residences, the places where I get to stay overnight and sleep there – I don’t say they’re my homes. They’re homes and houses for all Australians.  

But I wanted to make sure that the official venues themselves are places that welcome in a way that indicate that all belong in those places. They’ve often been places behind gates that have felt for the privileged, where not many people do belong – and I believe that all Australians belong and can come to these great houses.  

So, what do we do? We’ve changed the art. We’ve consulted with the National Gallery of Australia, the Portrait Gallery, the War Memorial.  

And if I tell you about a change in Admiralty House, it now has at the entrance a very important Aboriginal men’s painting, Paddy Bedford’s Men’s Medicine Pocket. Now, Paddy Bedford was the favourite artist of Sir William Deane. Sir William Deane, who is still alive, collected a lot of Paddy Bedford’s work. 

Of course, Paddy Bedford is no longer alive, but the Men’s Medicine Pocket sitting at the front of Admiralty House in Sydney, says something very distinct. Not just to Aboriginal people and Torres Strait Islanders arriving, but to everyone arriving. That that painting belongs in the entrance hall at Admiralty House, the home of the Admirals, traditionally.  

In the official study at Admiralty House is a magnificent painting by another great indigenous artist, Sally Gabori. It sits alongside many paintings and artifacts, which we’ve placed in both Government House and Admiralty house.  

But last January, while we were hosting an event for the University of New South Wales for young Indigenous engineering students at Admiralty House, I went looking for one of the participants as they were wandering around the house.  

I found him standing in front of the Sally Gabori painting in the official study all by himself. He was quite tearful, and he was staring deeply into the Sally Gabori painting.

Sally Gabori, of course, is a master painter – again, no longer with us – but from Mornington Island, near the top of Australia.  

And I went over to him and asked him how he was doing, and he said, ‘I’m okay.’ I said, ‘I think you’re a bit teary,’ and he said, ‘I’m just looking at this painting’. I said, ‘What matters about the painting?’ And he said, ‘Well, Auntie Sally painted with my grandmother, and they were great friends. And I know this work. I knew it, as I walked into your study, and I wonder whether I can ask you for a photo, because I have to show my mum when I get back to Mornington Island that Sally is in the house of the Governor-General.’

And of course, we took a selfie, and had a long conversation, I said, ‘tell me what it means – beyond the painting and beyond your relationship with Sally – as someone connected to you and your grandmother?’  

He was quite matter of fact. He said, ‘I never thought someone like me, from so far away, from a remote community would belong here and here I am. Here’s my country. In your study, you felt like you belong.’ 

And that’s the point of what we’re trying to do with the official residences. As an act of encouraging everyone to know they belong.  

It’s not just Indigenous paintings. We have put up many different paintings – from different theatres of war, from the war memorial that celebrate all sorts of service.  

We’ve put up paintings of people with Chinese and Asian heritage – faces that have never been seen on the walls of these houses before – to try to tell a story that everyone does belong.  

Over time, I hope that anyone who walks in will find something of their story on the walls or artifacts around these magnificent homes.  

A few weeks later, we had the 50th anniversary party for SBS in the same building. We were in the same room, and Rhoda Roberts, a wonderful Aboriginal leader on the board of SBS, came over to me. 

She said, ‘How come you’ve got a Mornington Island painting in your study?’ And I told her the story, and she said, ‘did you know that when you look across the way from Admiralty House, you look across to the Sydney Opera House? ... The first performance in the Sydney Opera House in 1973 was from the Mornington Island Aboriginal dancers.’ She said, ‘I thought that’s why you had it there, looking over at the Sydney Opera House to say you knew that had happened.’  

When you open up a story about who belongs, many other stories flood out. And I hope that continues to be the case.  

And I do hope that when you will come and visit – and everyone is invited – when you come to Sydney and to Canberra – that you find your story there. And I encourage you to ask us to find a story or promote a story that we can find in art or artifacts.  

Now tonight, it’s an absolute privilege for me to follow in the footsteps of the previous Sambell Orators. Their words, their ideas and reflections have always inspired me. I follow them online or read them after the event.

Last year’s Orator, Professor Sabina Alkire, powerfully invited us to measure poverty in a multidimensional way – so that poverty could be visible in ways that can be linked to action. Care in action, not just care as a thought.  

And I think one of my other predecessors, Sir William Deane, as I’ve already mentioned, he described that as, holding compassion at the core of the work. That’s what he told me to do when I met him before I was sworn in.  

Treasurer Jim Chalmers – who joined you the year before – he reminded us that hardheaded economics doesn’t have to conflict with compassion. 

There’s that word again.  

And in 2022 Aunty Pat Anderson AO and Professor Megan Davis AC gave a remarkable talk about the mighty Uluru Statement from the Heart.  

Now, just recently, it was a particular delight for me to invest Professor Davis, and another former Orator from a bit further back in 2011, Jennifer Westacott, with their insignia of the Companion of the Order of Australia, the AC.  

So, two of your former Orators are now holding the highest civilian honour in this country. It says so much about the people you invite and where they go on to next.  

I want to pay a tribute to Geoffrey Sambell. You’ve already heard about his life of service, whether it was in uniform during the Second World War, in the church, and to social services policy and delivery, his work was always and remains an example of deep care for others.  

For me, he epitomised the very essence of ensuring that everyone has a right to belong.

So, our theme of belonging tonight – reflected in the video that we saw before we sat down – is actually something I think about every day.  

And as you’ve heard, and I’ve gone on about it a lot, about being sworn in and committing that I would put care, kindness and respect at the core of everything I would do during my term.

I always say this so we understand what that care means –

care for one another, care for those who care for others, care for our extraordinary continent and its environmental beauty and the riches it has always given us, care for civics and institutions, and care for the way in which we discuss and debate the issues of our time without judgment, anger or violence, something I’ve reflected on a lot in the year that we’ve just had.

The Prime Minister, in asking me to serve as Governor-General, also asked me very specifically to be modern, visible and optimistic.  

So, I spend a great deal of time thinking about the intersection of care, kindness, modernity, optimism, visibility as well as respect.

It’s in that intersection I believe we find belonging – what it really means to belong in Australia and what it would mean if we were all to care deeply and actively about belonging.  

Everything that I’ve now seen and done in the last 14 months has done nothing but reaffirm my belief that care and kindness have a deep and resonant place in our Australian identity, our society, our communities and even our economy.  

And wherever I travel, people hear me talking about care, kindness and respect.  

But interestingly, the word they always pull out that they want to hear more of is kindness.  

It’s the one they most ask me to elevate.  

There’s something in that – about the time we live in – that people seek more kindness – for people to be kind and talk about kindness as a strength.  

Earlier this year, Professor Tim Jackson, someone I served with on the Sustainability Committee for many years, and a ecological economist at the University of Surrey, published The Care Economy.

I highly recommend it.

He argues that care is the first principle of human society on which everything else is built. Where traditional economists talked about ‘the invisible hand’ – Adam Smith and others – the care economy, he says, recognizes ‘the invisible heart,’ the vital work of care, that’s at the centre of all of our lives in the community.  

So, this is not so much about putting care at the centre. It is him recognizing and hoping that we will see that care is already there.  

A quote from what he says about care, he says he wants to argue in the book that our job is not to delve into specific sectors of the economy, which we happen to label with the word care.  

He says, “The care economy is not a standalone sector. It isn’t some desirable cherry on the top of the economic cake. I’m saying something different here. I’m saying this because prosperity is primarily about health. The economy should always and everywhere be about care. In talking about the care economy, I’m talking about economy as care. That’s my case.” And he makes that case brilliantly through a very personal set of stories in the book.  

But he draws on people like Joan Tronto, the author of Caring Democracy and Who Cares? And she describes care as a species of activity that includes everything we do to maintain, contain and repair our world so that we can live in it, as well as possible. That will include our bodies, ourselves and our environment.  

That’s the work of BSL, that’s the work of Geoffrey Sambell and everyone who has come since.  

The rare privilege that I have as your Governor General – there are many – but the rarest of all I think, is that the Office and the travel I have, gives me both a panoramic view of our society and the opportunity to regularly experience the very fine grain of communities.  

I’d like to quote another of my predecessors, Sir Zelman Cowen. He similarly spoke of the role of the Governor-General. He described it as reflecting the light and shade of the country back to itself, which is also an exercise I’m engaged with.  

Others have said to me that the job is to interpret the mood and the current tone of the country back to Australians today and through the lens of modernity, as requested by the Prime Minister.  

I think there’s an additional focus required. It’s to amplify, share and reflect the values, lessons and insights, not just to comment on them or place them for others to think about.  

It’s to inform and educate about our democracy and our institutions, to help to build trust and engagement in our citizens by inviting and welcoming everyone to the work of the Governor-General, the Office of the Governor-General.  

Modelling the behaviours and showcasing the values of care, kindness and respect in absolutely everything that we do to ensure that all Australians not only see themselves within our mighty democracy but know profoundly that they do belong.

And that their care for our institutions – as I said in those words about what we care about – is as vital as anything.  

As you all know, the times we now live in demand our engagement and care about all of those aspects. Data sadly confirms that Australians’ understanding and appreciation of our democracy and civics is in a fairly parlous state.  

I’ve arrived into an Office when not many people actually know the Office exists, where trust in institutions has declined and misinformation is ever present, with the potential to destabilize and actively undermine our democracy – and we see it in developments around the world.  

We know how precious our democracy is and how important it is that we nurture, renew and care for it.  

I see it when I’m travelling overseas. It’s often important for me to reflect back to Australia, how we’re seen by others everywhere I’ve travelled in the last 12 months – Singapore, Sri Lanka, Japan, Turkey. I’ve been to Egypt. I’ve most recently been to Mongolia and Vietnam.  

In all of those places – I can tell you, people race up to tell me about how much they admire our democracy, our values.

Most recently it was spoken about in Mongolia – a place I’d encourage you all to engage with and visit. It’s a fascinating place, sitting precariously between two enormous neighbours, China and Russia.  

It’s a democracy, almost 35 years old, and one of the ideas for its democratic institutions and the education of its cabinet came from Gareth Evans – our former Foreign Minister – who, with a former Foreign Minister of Mongolia, over 35 years ago, on the back of a serviette, wrote a plan for the Australian Awards Colombo Plan – a plan for smart Mongolians to come to Australian universities.  

Today, over half the Mongolian cabinet were trained in Australia. About democracy, in English, and they call themselves the “Mozzies”... I subsequently met over 80 of them at the time, playing enormous roles right across the Mongolian economy and society.  

They need us to keep reforming and investing in our democracy, to know that the one they believe in is thriving and strong – because they believe in us.  

I hear similar things all over the world. I often want to say to people who say things aren’t great here, or we’ve had the biggest division in our communities of all time, to say it’s just not true. You need to go outside our country and listen to those that observe us and know just how precious our democracy is.  

And so today, I’m even more convinced now than I was when I stood in the Senate over a year ago, that it’s care, kindness and respect at the core of who we are, and it does underpin our ability to remain a strong and very successful country.  

I also said at the time in that speech that care is the quieter, better part of ourselves, and I still believe that.  

But having travelled around this country – twice into every state and territory, visiting the places I promised that didn’t often get a visit – and spoken and listened to thousands of Australians, I’ve been treating the community as my new teacher.  

And now I believe, through them, the care can’t always be the quiet part, that part we often leave unspoken or ignored or assumed or garnered with humility.  

Care is, in fact, as everyone at BSL knows – it’s hard.  

It’s got to be rigorous. It takes effort and commitment. It’s strategic, and when it’s embraced and done well, it delivers so much better in the way of outcomes, regardless of the policy area.  

But as much as in economic and security decisions, as it does in health and social security and the alleviation of poverty and exclusion, care is at the core of a modern Australia where everyone should belong.  

But we need to treat it seriously and understand how hard that is to do.  

Earlier, I also borrowed from Noel Pearson’s three-point view of Australia’s next story. I call it a braided story now, because I think it’s in a braiding of the three that we gather our strengths.

The story that begins with 65,000 years of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander history and culture, joined by the democratic ideals that underpin our civics and institutions derived from the British but also uniquely Australian – including the Office of the Governor-General – and then, a remarkable multiculturalism where more than 7.5 million people have migrated to Australia since the Second World War.  

This year, we marked 50 years since the arrival of the first refugees from Vietnam. And during my recent state visit to Vietnam, I reflected to the President and the other leaders that I met, that I could not imagine modern Australia today without the immense contributions that generations of people from Vietnam have made to our nation.  

And of course, that extends to all people who’ve come from so many other nations to help us be successful.  

And later this year, we’re not exactly sure when, but it will be noteworthy, we will welcome our millionth refugee. Whoever that person is, whoever they might be, wherever they come from, they are part of this modern chapter, and they are part of a story that’s still being written, but I like to think of it now as describing us as modern Australia.  

And so, it’s in that context that I think about belonging. What would it feel like to belong in modern Australia?  

And I asked that question earlier today at Foundation House with Paris Aristotle, who I think is here tonight.  

Thank you for hosting us today, Paris. It was remarkable.  

I asked a very diverse group of people who work at Foundation House and who work with refugees and asylum seekers as BSL does – I asked many of them, who themselves had refugee backgrounds, what it would mean to belong in modern Australia.

And the answers that they returned were quite profound and so deeply honest.  

They reflected that belonging means feeling seen, feeling safe and feeling like you can build the life you want to live.  

To have the capacity and capability to live the lives that you aspire to, including a deep commitment to want to contribute to Australia’s success.  

For so many people who come here as migrants and refugees, finding freedom and safety is only the beginning.  

I meet them all over the country. No matter how long they’ve been here, they have only ever wanted to contribute as Australians to make Australia an even better place.  

They want to help others who are on the same journey.  

They all – like all of us in this room – want to contribute to our broader Australian project.  

In that sense, I think belonging means being engaged, to be purposeful.  

But they reminded me in that conversation, in order to do so, they need to know where to start – how to start when they first arrive – to be treated with respect and included in services and pathways.  

They need the architecture for developing and growing their personal capacity.  

The Brotherhood of St Laurence is an example of this, and I’ve seen that over so many years, particularly through the work at the National Youth Employment Body, where we travelled the country.

We met young people who wanted the same chance – a start – with capacity and skills so they could reach their potential wherever they were from. And the NYEB work, profoundly works... It’s one of the many, many successes of the Brotherhood.  

Now, in addition to being your Governor-General, I’m also – in a difficult turn of events for my father, who served in the Australian Army for 40 years, and having had four daughters, never really believed that women should serve alongside servicemen the front line in the army – the Commander-in-Chief of the Australian Defence Force.

I meet regularly with the Service Chiefs. Our Chief of Defence is someone who very much understands the role that Defence plays in our community – what it means to belong in the Defence Force.  

I’ve come to know and understand the modern ADF. I’ve learned from countless discussions with serving women and men on bases around Australia and all over the world, who do such a powerful work for us.  

And to discover that we are the only nation in the world that since 1947 has had peacekeepers in parts of the world every day, it’s a wonderful thing that we should celebrate.

Now, many of the conversations that we have would surprise you. Old-school soldiers with chests full of medals suddenly open up and talk to me about the fact they really want me to talk about deep acts of care. They want me to talk as a veteran’s daughter, as a family member of a veteran.  

They talk with emotion about why they care.  

The care conversation comes up all the time in one of the toughest and rigorous student governments – our defence force.  

And, I’ve sought his permission tonight, because I’ve also learned a lot from my most recent aide-de-camp.  

I have an aide de camp – an aide from the modern Defence Force – from each of the services, Army, Air Force and Navy. They serve me for a year before they pass to someone else and go and do extraordinary things in their careers.  

Most recently, Flight Lieutenant Danie Bunting joined us as my Air Force aide-de-camp, and he’s here with me tonight.  

Danie is a nurse – and a paramedic – who arrived in Australia from Singapore as a young boy.  

He has served in the Victorian ambulance service before joining the ADF.  

He’s been a forensic police officer in Victoria. He has been deployed overseas in London, helping Ukraine and Afghanistan.  

He also volunteers for the St John Ambulance.  

And last week, at a St John Connect Camp in Sydney, Danie introduced me to the crowd of 14 to 15 year olds.  

Just like Danie when he was young, turning up as a teenager, to show how to help people, care for people, and give themselves to others.  

Today, Danie joined me at Foundation House. He was asked whether he felt that he belonged, and I loved his response – and he’s given me permission to tell you what he said – his answer was, ‘as an Asian migrant, a gay man and a Muslim serving our country in the uniform of the Royal Australian Air Force, how could I not feel like I belonged?’

Think about what that says about modern Defence. I want to thank Danie for letting me share. He’s also a remarkable ADC.

Today, we also visited and saw care in every form.  

Whether it was the Peter Mac Cancer Center, the work that’s done at every level of care across this country and here in Victoria. Peter Mac are actually the only health service in Australia that has social prescribers. It was the first time I’ve heard of a social prescriber.  

And these are those workers that sit in the Wellbeing Centre and make prescriptions for connection, community and wellbeing for their patients that they now describe as more lifesaving than the treatment they’ve had to stay well.  

This is the connection back into society, into a sense of belonging.  

And early this morning, I visited the headquarters of Victoria Police. I’d spoken with Commissioner Mike Bush in the tragic days following the Porepunkah shooting.  

And today was a chance to check in, for support and care for the police – and they care deeply.  

And they are in pain and having lost their members.  

I saw that again at the Police Remembrance Day just a week ago in Canberra.  

Because their role is also one of care.  

I want to return to belonging in the context of citizenship.  

I now have that unique privilege I mentioned of presiding over Citizenships everywhere, from the Drawing Room of Government House to Town Halls in the suburbs to the shores of Lake Burley Griffin on Australia Day and Sydney Harbor, or when required to the remote Northern Territory in Nhulunbuy.  

Each one has been uplifting and inspiring and filled with tender and powerful moments of family, friendships and of course, of belonging.  

I’ve observed two common traits in all these ceremonies. The one I’ve already shared with you is about the impact of the Welcome to Country.  

The second is our newest citizens’ pride in our civics and our institutions. Partly through the process of the challenging citizenship test, which I would encourage anyone who has not had to do, you will discover that those who’ve done the test know more about our civics and our values and what it means to live by the rule of law in this country than you will, and you will get most of the questions wrong.

It’s a great thing to do.  

What I see though, is fronting up to become an Australian citizen is a conscious choice – to belong to a country with participatory democracy, compulsory voting and stable, responsible government.  

It’s where they have an opportunity to contribute on an equal footing.  

It’s why they want to join us and become citizens of Australia.

I saw this at the Social Outfit.  

I went there to see a couple of workers in the work room. I wanted to know what it felt like for them to belong, what it meant to belong in Australia.  

And that day, I met Sohelya. She had made a shirt that I had worn, and she noticed it on our social media, and she was so proud.  

Sohelya was wanting to tell me something, desperately.  

She took me aside and she told me about her story of arriving in Australia as a refugee from Afghanistan, having spent many years in Iran with her young daughter, and she told me how proud she was to become a citizen.

And she had a face bursting with joy.

She said the best thing that ever happened since becoming a citizen – she raced to get her citizenship – because she voted for the first time in her life in the most recent federal election.  

Two weeks after she became a citizen, her happiest day was voting. She told me what it was like to stand there with her 14-year-old daughter and for her daughter to know that she would vote in Australia and her voice would matter, that she’d be seen and heard something that had never occurred in their lives. It’s a joy.  

I wish that all Australians could feel that joy more deeply and not just be blase about our compulsory preferential voting.

If the future of Australia is reflected in the pride and joy I see on the faces of those taking Citizenship and those I’ve spoken about, and those who welcome First Nations, I’m very optimistic about this country.

Part of that comes back to care, of course, because it’s the care I’ve seen in the communities and every volunteer organization... or every place where Australians are known for excellence in the arts and sciences, in education and communication, in defence and international relationships, and importantly, in our civics and our democracy.

It’s the most basic mechanism of us all living together, and it’s intrinsically linked to belonging.  

It’s what joins us all, what brings us all here tonight.  

Care, in that sense, is something that Geoffrey Sambell would have recognized. The hallmark of his contribution across decades of Social Services leadership was care, underpinned by accountability, good governance and management.

He knew, and you all know, and I know, that care has to be sustainable and ethical, supported by the whole community.  

And you probably know that next week is National Carers Week, and as Patron of Carers Australia, I’ll be marking that with a round table discussion at Government House in Canberra.  

The theme is, “You are one, know one, or will be one”.  

You might also add to that, that you were cared for and you are cared for, and you will continue to be cared for.  

So, whether we acknowledge it or not, care and belonging are fundamental and ever present in our lives.  

Just recently, I received a beautiful letter from a man who told me that, as a carer for many of his family members, my promise to elevate care had resonated with him, and he said, this, “your speech gave voice to something many carers know in our bones - that care is not a private burden, but a public good. It’s part of our national story.”  

He added that carers want to see care given moral weight, that social recognition of care is the quiet justice that carers work toward every day.

I think considering care as a public good is appropriate, giving it moral weight social recognition. It really speaks to an ethics of care. Just as Joan Tronto said.

I was really happy in preparing this oration to learn that parts of my swearing speech are now read by participants at the Cranlana Centre for Ethical Leadership, alongside parts of moral philosopher Virginia Held’s 2005 book, The Ethics of Care.  

In that book, she argues that our foundations for justice and ethics should recognize that as humans, we are relational and interdependent. The view of people as rational, independent individuals, flourishing on their own sounds noble, but it does not describe our lives. We do not thrive alone.  

And she says every person starts out as a child, dependent on those providing us care, and we remain interdependent with others in thoroughly fundamental ways throughout our lives.  

Indeed, any one of us tonight, anyone in this country, may become completely dependent again at any time.  

She also argues that while there can be care without justice – think about the way caring is distributed in families and societies and women – there can be no justice without care.  

And care is, in fact, the larger framework within which we can begin to think about justice, and I’d say, belonging.  

I learned that from Justice Michael Kirby when I worked for him as a young lawyer, when he was President of the New South Wales Court of Appeal.  

He taught me that the law was not transactional either.  

He said to me, it was grounded in something larger, something he simply called love.  

He saw failures of justice as failures of love and failures of empathy.  

He was dealing with people who did not feel like they belonged, who were left out. And I’ve been recently reflecting on that year because he’s invited me to contribute a foreword to his new collection of speeches and articles spanning his 50-year career.  

But if you look at his career and the people he’s cared for, it’s always for people who otherwise would be on the margins.  

He makes them belong, and he infuses everything with his sense of love as the foundation of human rights.  

Just like Sir William Deane did, he elevated compassion and told me to put compassion at the centre of all I do.  

Love, compassion, care, kindness.

To some, it can seem odd, to bring these into the public sphere, I suspect not in this room, though they are, in fact, central to our lives as a community of people who belong together and together, belong to this country, to this land and to the planet.  

The final thing I just want to say is what I increasingly see is the issue of my time, as your Governor General, and it takes us back to that civics and democracy piece.  

Six months into my term, I met with the head of ACARA, the curriculum authority. And when you learn that 72% of Australians don’t know anything about our democracy, and that once kids get to the age of 15, less than 25% will know anything about how the system works – that’s an admission, a lack of knowledge.  

So that’s the final piece of how I think about belonging.  

I’m using every tool at my disposal to lift the veil and explain the show, what’s behind the tradition, the convention and processes behind our constitutional and ceremonial duties.  

If you haven’t jumped on to my Instagram – we’re using Instagram, Facebook, modern forms of communication – not for grandeur, not for ego.  

To show and tell, to explain our modern democracy and everything that sits behind our constitutional arrangements, our parliamentary democracy, why we have the compulsory vote.

I’ll keep doing it, because the response has been positive.  

People are eager and hungry for more.  

I think that reflects the fundamental truth and a reason for optimism.  

Most Australians know deep down that our democracy is something we should be proud of.  

But we’ve got to have a concerted system and effort to renew our commitment to democracy.  

Because we are facing – if we should we allow it to happen – a perfect storm where complacency and all that makes our democracy strong is meeting the modern maelstrom of dis-and misinformation.

If there was care for our institutions of democracy, then misinformation would remain on the fringes. It’s creeping in because we don’t have strength in our understanding of our democracy.  

Recent research shows that while our democracy is still well-regarded, there are big indicators that we’re in trouble, and an investment in renewal is required.  

I would encourage you all to get a copy of the most recent McKinnon research into the renewing of our democracy.  

It tells you what’s going on.  

It tells you how many people don’t understand what is going on, but people actually do believe in a fair go.

There’s the issue, there’s the mission for each of us, especially for those who might be in public office and public positions.  

Now’s the time to think about, what does this moment call for?  

And what it calls for is – what I’ve been talking about throughout my long speech – it’s care and belonging.  

It’s guided me throughout this first year of my term, the finer part of care, the better part of ourselves.  

I want to advocate that, perhaps, as I said earlier, we must talk a lot about it, that we need to showcase, we need to exemplify.  

We need to acknowledge behaviour, particularly online, that is not kind or caring; when rancour and abuse are rewarded and celebrated; to call out the fact that they must not be, if we truly value care.  

We need to fight for all of this.  

We need to acknowledge that democracy requires active citizenship, and we need support and enable that.  

So, I’ve spoken with deep and genuine optimism, I hope, about what I’ve seen as a country in my first year as Governor-General, because it’s in our democracy that Australians belong.  

And our democratic institutions belong to all Australians. That’s where care and belonging can critically come together.  

Participation in our democracy, grounded in understanding, is itself a form of care, of stewardship, and we know that people who feel like they belong are more likely to participate, and inform themselves, and informed participation is a very effective way of cultivating belonging.  

Since our democratic institutions are the basis for our freedoms, our rights, our responsibilities and our connections, it now matters more than ever that people understand and feel ownership of them.  

It matters that all of us, all Australians, in all of our wonderful diversity – in our titanium strength diversity, as Jason Yat-sen Li calls it – that we share a sense of good investment in what keeps us united and makes us free and guarantees peace.  

So, are we optimistic?  

I hope to be visible and continue to be modern in the way I explain the role of the Governor-General, hoping to build understanding, showcasing both tradition and modernity, helping people engage in their democracy and feel pride in the greatness of our modern Australia.  

And I can only do that if we all do that together. And I learned those lessons early on through the Brotherhood of St Laurence. Through the work that we’ve done in partnership with civil society.  

Always that belonging is to show up, to care about all the things that really matter – our future – and make us truly inviting.

We must care about poverty.  

We must care about our democracy.  

We’ve got to care about care, and we have to care about the way we conduct ourselves in the most difficult issues of our time, and not descend into violence and hate and anger, but stick with love.

[END]