It's a pretty hot day in Western Sydney. I know the transport system has been a little difficult, but I think we're heading for 37 degrees in this part of Sydney, and one of the hottest days – we're not even into summer! So much to reflect on today as people are sweltering, that we are lovely and cool in here, in this beautiful, modern building.  

Thank you to both Professor Libby Hackett, the CEO of APPI, and to Vice-Chancellor George Williams, for your welcome. I particularly want to thank Professor Michelle Trudgett, the Deputy Vice-Chancellor and Vice-President of Indigenous Leadership at Western Sydney University, for that warm Acknowledgement of Country.  

Again, looking forward to a very modern moment with the opening of the new institute, of which Simeon and I are so delighted to be patrons, I want to acknowledge the Dharug people, the Traditional Owners of the land we meet on today, and acknowledge their elders past and present, and to acknowledge all First Nations people who join us as part of today's oration.  

Now I'm delighted that Simeon and I have said yes very enthusiastically to the Indigenous Center of Excellence, and I've had a long engagement with Michelle, as you've heard through the GO Foundation, which is all about education for a younger group of Australians, keeping them in school and making sure they're grounded and connected to culture. So to be engaged with a new project that will be sitting proudly and beautifully on the Parramatta South Campus, at Rydalmere, is really an important moment for us to reflect on the building and the intent, I think, articulates an ethos of deep respect, the intersection of culture, of knowledge, and community. Indigenous-led, that project is working closely with elders and the broader community here to reflect principles of reciprocity and respect, something I think we could think about in terms of policy, and I'll come to that in a moment.

Thank you very much, Vice-Chancellor, for having us here. It's an important campus for us to be visiting today and for this oration to be occurring on. I'm going to acknowledge a few people who are here. I suspect the most distinguished guests are actually in the general audience, the students, the academics, the policy makers, those that we talk about, I guess, in absence, about your collaborative efforts and who you are today as part of this oration. So I want to acknowledge all of you. I think Jennifer Westacott is going to try to make it. I don't think she can today, but the Chancellor of this university, Jennifer Westacott AC is a dear friend of mine. She and I first met each other serving on the Redfern-Waterloo Authority decades ago now, and more recently, before I took office, Jennifer was an essential part of the women's Economic Equality Task Force, which I chaired, and then just a few weeks ago in Canberra, it was a great honor to invest Jennifer with the highest civilian order in our honor system, the Companion of the Order of Australia, and that's in recognition of her service to business, tertiary education, the mental health sector and the community. There's nothing like the privilege in this role of being able to invest important Australians, good Australians, who do so much for our country. And it was a delight to be doing that with Jennifer just a few weeks ago.  

Now, George, you have an Australian honor. You have an AO for your services to many things over a lifetime of believing in this country. Vice-Chancellor and President of Western Sydney University, you are one of our nation's most outstanding and leading constitutional law experts, committed to the protection of human rights always and now swapping that out as a leading administrator in the university sector. But you're also a highly effective communicator. I most recently heard you, George, on commercial radio, celebrating the work of this vital university. It's great to hear you out in the community, making sure those connections are made. And I think people are paying attention, because you're using a very modern form of communication, to an audience that needs to hear what happens at this university. Simeon had hoped to be here, but sends his apologies. He wanted me to pass on his best wishes to you as a long-time admirer of your work.  

Peter Varghese AO, Chair of the Australian Public Policy Institute, I want to congratulate you, Peter on your recent appointment to this role. We've known each other over many years, sometimes at a distance, sometimes more closely, from your DFAT days, your incredible work in international development, to your chancellorship of the University of Queensland and the many, many other hats that you have always worn. Congratulations on your appointment as the chair of this particular institute. It says so much about the quality of well-known Australians that do chair this organization. It's wonderful that you have now taken on that mantle.  

I was going to acknowledge Professor Peter Shergold AC and unfortunately, he's unwell today. He's Chair of the Australian Research Council, and he was the former chair of APPI. And here we are in a building so fittingly named in his honor. We are in the Peter Shergold building, and that really reflects his deep commitment to education. For over a decade as chancellor of this university, we've also known each other over many years, Peter and I, we've got an absolute commitment together, as everyone in this room does, to good policy, effective policy, and knowing that that makes a profound difference in people's lives. We know that, particularly here in Western Sydney, that it has to be good policy, human-centered policy, connected policy that actually affects people's lives. Peter was the head of the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet for a long time, and then inaugural COO of the pioneering Center for Social Impact. That was another dynamic collaboration of universities that brought academics and researchers together, in that case, to assess the social impact of government and philanthropic activities. So he brought that into the roles that he currently serves in, but also to APPI.  

I want to acknowledge Libby as the long-serving CEO of this organization, from the very, very beginning and continues to lead with extraordinary professionalism and ambition and energy.  

And Gillian Kilby – there are many members of the board here – I acknowledge you all for your hard work. I wanted to think about Gillian Kilby because we've known each other for a long time. You were the acting chair before Peter took on the role after the other Peter retired, but you've been involved in the organization from the very, very beginning, in a governance role, and we share a history of your exceptional work supporting women's economic opportunities, work here in New South Wales, which was evidence-based, human-centered and place-based, which led to extraordinary reforms from the New South Wales Government to ensure that women's economic agency and freedom can be guaranteed by good policy, including a big investment in affordable childcare, amongst many other things. But you're an exceptional part of that. And I know you're finishing up early next year, and I want to congratulate you on everything you've done, Gillian.

Now today, as many of you in this audience would know, marks the start of Diwali, the festival of lights. Here in Western Sydney, of course, there'll be great celebrations, as there will be right across the country, but very particularly here in Western Sydney. I couldn't stay for the afternoon. So today, I'm really delighted that the Consul-General of India for Sydney will join me in lighting some lanterns at Kirrabilli, at Admiralty House. I'm really glad we can do that to mark the start of Diwali. There are so many celebrations of this festival, and as this university exemplifies, it's an important part of understanding the great fabric of Australian modern life today, the fact that we're modern, diverse and successful.  

These are the stories of the Australia I now get to see from the exceptional view I have as your Governor-General. Just earlier this year, I joined the Tamil community at the Parramatta Town Hall, not far from here, for another celebration, my first Pongal celebration, and that was a memorable expression of beauty and the richness of the Tamil culture, storytelling, music and dancing in a recently restored, partly modern, but very historic town hall, there was the spirit of modern Australia, again, diverse, optimistic and successful. It was all on show, as it is, really wherever I go. And for their visit last year to Australia, King Charles and Queen Camilla asked us to create a vibrant program that would engage them with Australia's successful modern chapter. So where did we choose? We chose Western Sydney. We chose here to host a modern Australian barbecue, playing on the trope of the ‘barbie,’ but a very modern barbecue here in Western Sydney at Parramatta Park, Their Majesties were welcomed by one of the most extraordinary and vast arrays of communities that together have underpinned the success and modernity of our nation.  

Now, Western Sydney University's long history in this region has always recognized it as a special history in our story of Australia. And as Jennifer has said, on many occasions, diversity is the basis of progress and the abundance of its potential. And I couldn't agree more, I want to share a small anecdote before I move into the main part of my address, just that tells you a bit about how many more people need to know about Western Sydney and why this story matters. It's an anecdote that goes back to 2009 when I was an AFL Commissioner. So this is about Aussie Rules, which has become part of the fabric of Western Sydney. It might not have always been, but I think it's becoming more so now. But during that time, we invested heavily in two new clubs, one on the Gold Coast and one in Western Sydney, which, of course, became the Greater Western Sydney Giants. We wanted to get one of the most iconic, historically, very important people in football to come to be the inaugural coach, and that was Kevin Sheedy. Some of you will know that that name means something. Many of you will not but just to say that Kevin was one of the most noted coaches and one that had deepest relationship into Aboriginal communities and had fought hard for diversity in football, but an incredible coach over decades. We wanted him to come to be the inaugural coach of the Greater Western Sydney Giants, and he wasn't convinced. He loves Victoria and Melbourne. He's an excellent coach, amongst other things. So I convinced the AFL to let us go up in a helicopter and hang over Western Sydney for about an hour, and we gently came across the entirety of the grounds that would be the home for the Giants and the pool of people that would become the potential members of the Greater Western Sydney club. Now, when we got there, he was interested in the flight as we got on. I thought it'd be a bit of fun. But as we kept going and going and going, traversing the breadth of this part of Sydney, his eyes were out on stalks. He was breathless. Are we still in Western Sydney? Is this still the ground where – this is where our players will be drawn from eventually? Is this where our fans will come from? I said, Yes, yes. And he said, I think it's about three or four Melbournes already that we've seen. By the time we got back down on the ground, Kevin had agreed to come and meet with his family and be the inaugural coach of the Greater Western Sydney Giants. I just say that because we need to share the reflection of connection, we've got to connect parts of Australia, and I see that very clearly in my role as your Governor-General, but it was an early indication of how to share stories, how to get people engaged and know what was happening to Australia, and to move people out of their own worlds, to actually acknowledge and see our extraordinary success and what's fundamental to our future.  

Thank you to the team at APPI for inviting me here to deliver your 2025 oration. Your commitment to identifying public policy solutions by utilizing university expertise and accelerating collaboration between policymakers and researchers is absolutely vital to our progress.  

Now it's been mentioned that I was the 28th Governor-General. I'm the second woman to hold this position, very proudly, but I hold another distinction, which is part of the reason why I care so much about policy and the history of policy. I'm the first Canberra-born Governor-General, and so I grew up in and out of Canberra. My father was serving in the Australian Army, but I was born there, and I finished my school, most of my high school, college and university education. And to grow up in Canberra is to know why we have a capital city and where policy at the national level is made, and has had a profound effect on our country. It meant, as I was growing up, I was always interested in how policy was made, actually more interested in the policy than the politics, because it was only public servants I got to know in my early years of working in Canberra. And so it's not surprising that most of my career is defined by being interested in policy makers, people who are beyond politics, but are interested in fundamental change for the country, always through linking things that happen in the real world with great, great evidence base, and then applying it and understanding it, knowing when to adjust. And I saw that first-hand in Canberra as I was growing up and when I was at university, and my first job in the ACT magistrates court there.

Now I first knew APPI, when you were known as the James Martin Institute for Public Policy. That's where I first met Gillian. And so I've known you for the duration of your history, and I know just how important you have been, but I turn to your 2024-25 Impact Report, and it underscores exactly why public benefit can and always should be a consequence of good public policy, grounded in evidence, supercharged by the power of a coalition of universities and their academics and students, mobilizing expertise for the good of all Australians. And I believe what you're doing at the Institute is a significant act of care for our country and for our future.

Many of you will know that when I was sworn in as your Governor-General in July last year, I promised to put the values of care, kindness and respect at the centre of everything I do. Care for each other, care for those who do the caring of others and for others. Care for our continent and its environmental riches, care for civics and institutions like universities, like policy makers, and importantly, care for the way in which we discuss the issues of our time. They're really tough issues at the moment. They've always been tough, but they're more complicated, more global, and they're being brought home more often. How we discuss those and come to some resolution and understanding of each other without rancor, anger, judgment or violence, really, to argue better. Well, with respect, what I didn't appreciate then when I was being sworn in that city so acutely now is the nexus between care, kindness and respect and the modernity, visibility and optimism that the Prime Minister asked me to exemplify as your Governor-General, as a Governor-General for all Australians, and over the past 15 months, I have seen so clearly the power of the intersection of care, kindness and respect with modernity, visibility and optimism. At that intersection, I've seen our modern nation. I see at this intersection of care, kindness and respect a real sense of visibility and modernity, these are the things that can define us.  

It would tell us that that's a place where we can all belong, where care, kindness, respect are central to our sense of belonging, and it's ever present in the work of APPI, as many of my predecessors in this office have reflected, the office of Governor-General carries the immense and rare privilege of experiencing Australia from both a panoramic vantage-point – I get to stand back and look across the country in all of its richness and diversity – and then, very often, at the fine grain of community and civic life, deep into the communities that make us a nation. Everything that is now generously shared with me as Governor-General, because I have no politics, because I don't have policies to offer, and because I have no money to dispense, there's an honesty and a richness and integrity in the conversations that are brought my way.

The conversations, stories, experiences, the chats, formal and informal, the observing of things that go on in our communities, that reaffirm, to me, that care and kindness have a deep and resonant place in our Australian identity, our society, our communities, and some may dispute, but I believe, deep in our economy. The times we live in of local challenges, global conflicts and stresses and growing existential threats are driving people to seek something much more helpful and more kind, not just in their daily lives, but in the civic, social and political lives that surround us all.  

Wherever I travel, people want me to keep using these words, but many are asking me to keep talking about kindness above all, which I take as a sign about what a community needs in the times that we are living through. Australians know that kindness is a strength and that care is accountable and strategic and that respect is fundamental. They expect policies that affect them to understand this and reflect this in their implementation and the way in which they are created.  

And wherever I travel, I revisit the theme of Australia's mighty story, which Noel Pearson so beautifully framed as the three-part story of who we are, our Indigenous foundation of over 65,000 years, generously shared with everyone who has come since, always offered with kindness and respect and care. Our British traditions and institutions. Of course, I represent, through my role as the representative of the head of state from the British system that came. And then we lift off into a remarkable multicultural present and future. All of this buttresses what I call simply modern Australia.  

And it's impossible to sit among Australians in the cities, the suburbs, the regions and the bush, wherever they would like to be, met in homes, in council chambers, out in the bush, beside disaster areas, all sorts of places where I am able to sit and understand at times of celebration and sometimes of sorrow. These are things I get to do most days, and I can't do that without experiencing the full spectrum of light and shade that imbues our national life and character. It's a very, very central thing that former Governor-General Sir Zelman Cowen spoke about so long ago, he spoke of this being intrinsic to the role of the Governor General to see, understand and reflect that light and shade of our communities back to Australia by amplifying, sharing and reflecting on the values, the lessons and insights that emerge – in my case, now from modern Australia. I would add to Sir Zelman Cowen’s prescription for the Governor-General that there's now a role for teaching and opening and sharing, which is why I use social media so vociferously to tell the story of everything we do in our office, because so many people do not know what happens inside the Office of the Governor-General or many other important public roles.  

I've also learned that, more concretely, it’s really important for me and everyone who holds a public office to model the behaviors and showcase the values of care, kindness and respect in absolutely everything that we do, so that all Australians see not only themselves in our mighty democracy, but know how profoundly they do belong, and understanding it forms a connection to its preservation and its strengthening.  

Now I've been asked to reflect a bit on the year, so I'll just use this week as an example of what I have the great privilege to do, and it has been a busy week. Last week, I credentialed three new ambassadors and High Commissioners to Australia, from Ecuador, from Pakistan and from Malta, and I received the regional representative of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, starting in her role in Canberra. At the end of last week, I welcomed a lot of young Aboriginal Australian students, supported by the GO foundation to Admiralty House, right there on Sydney Harbor, that spectacular piece of real estate, for a leadership day. So they knew they were welcome, but to connect them with their culture and each other, together with their teachers from public schools across Sydney, and then allowing them to race and play games, but also to do a lot of learning and to commit to their education and to the success that they will find if they stay in school.  

Saturday morning, I boarded the STS Young Endeavour to be with the young staff and student crews, as they had just completed their circumnavigation of Australia. The staff crew had been away for over 200 days with over 300 students who participated in the program over the course of the last year, and here we were on the last leg, coming into Sydney Harbor to be welcomed by the parents and friends and families of the last group of students, 14,15,16 year olds Testing themselves on an extraordinary, extraordinary group, the Young Endeavour.  

On Saturday night, I joined two remarkable organizations at separate gala events, the Defence Gay and Lesbian Information Service at their 10th annual pride ball, a modern Defence Force, confident in accepting everybody, and then over to ACON to the 40th anniversary dinner of New South Wales community organization working to end HIV. That was the weekend and a few days leading into the weekend. In the days ahead, I will be traveling across South Australia, visiting a number of regions, where we will balance key local issues, getting to know local people with deep dives into industry, space and technology, defence, youth and civic activities. Then we'll move on to join Indigenous elders at Uluru next weekend to mark the 40th anniversary of the handing back of Uluru to the Anangu people, the traditional owners of that land. This is just a glimpse of the Australia the world sees when they look at us, they see all of these things. They speak about it with admiration and respect. They tell me about it. When I make my overseas journeys, these issues often frame those journeys and visits. So we keep telling that story and bring back the stories of how the world admires this country. It's an Australia that the world sees and speaks about all the time, particularly in a time when not many democracies are flourishing, and ours is. Recently, I traveled with my team on state visits to Singapore and Sri Lanka in August, and then to Japan, Mongolia and Vietnam in September. In each element of our program, we were met with deep interest in the elements of our great democracy and told to keep on supporting it and committing to it. It was often in the context of education and people to people links through universities that our success was celebrated: from our meeting with representatives of Singapore-based Australian universities conducting joint research and cutting edge science with CSIRO, and members of the Australian Alumni Association of Singapore helping to celebrate the 60 years of diplomatic friendship and people to people links between Australia and Singapore, then to a round table with education providers in Sri Lanka, in partnership with Australian higher and vocational education providers. These are stories that underpin our relationships around the world. Then I went to the opening of the Australia Vietnam Policy Institute of RMIT Vietnam in Hanoi to the south Saigon campus of RMIT. RMIT was the first international university to open in Vietnam. They have over 30,000 students on the south Saigon campus. I went to a high school in Osaka where I saw an Australian exchange student currently on campus there. So it's in the education setting and education policy where I received the clearest picture of the stories that Australia is telling the world about its modernity, its optimism and success. And by virtue of that, what we care about. Each of these, I think, speak to the enduring power of education, which is why university-supporting policy makes such a difference. It's education that lifts people up, builds ties of friendship, deep empathy and engagement. The most striking example I can give you of how profound this is, and probably the least known story here in Australia, emerged in Mongolia. Many people wondered why we went to Mongolia. I didn't because I'd done the homework and knew why it was important for us to travel there. Like us, Mongolia is a democracy, but a much younger one. It's also surrounded by extremely powerful neighbors. It's landlocked between those neighbors. During my historic state visit, which has not been conducted for over 30 years, since Bill Hayden last traveled, the president of Mongolia revealed a significant part of their success as a democracy is a group who identified as Mozzies. When I first heard about the Mozzies, I thought of them having to take lots and lots of repellent. That's not what they were talking about. They were not talking about mosquitoes. Born on the back of a paper napkin in 1993 then foreign ministers, Gareth Evans and Gombosuren Tserenpil outlined a scholarship program which led to the creation of the Australian awards.  

The Mozzies are, of course, Mongolian Australians, Mongolians who have been supported through the awards to study at Australian universities. They represent over 30 years of cooperation and friendship between our two countries. A considerable number of the Mozzies are members of the Mongolian Cabinet today. Others include senior bureaucrats and community leaders playing enormous and influential roles in Mongolian civic and social life, and their deep and ongoing affection for Australia was striking. This is a country that's chosen to abandon Russian as its international language that uses English, and much of that English teaching is done by volunteers from Australian Volunteers International, some of whom we met. I met several hundred of the Mozzies themselves in Ulaanbaatar, some who were involved in the creation of the awards more than 30 years ago, but it was more than affection that I saw. It was connection, established through their time in Australian universities, that lay at the heart, in part, of Mongolia's successful democracy. The personal relationships are something you once described Peter Varghese, as diaspora groups building distinctive bridges between Australia and their countries of origin. I see this all the time, particularly now, in those that represent us in our diplomatic posts, many of whose families were not born in Australia but are on the road now representing us with the full diversity of their history as proud Australian diplomats.  

It could also be described as the new High Commissioner for Pakistan did with me last week. He just described what's going on here as a living bridge, all about people, and today, of course, with Australia's higher education sector having such a widespread international presence, those bridges are not built by diaspora groups alone, but by people in their home countries with direct experience of Australian education. A common theme in all these encounters is an acknowledgement of the deep respect and admiration for our democracy and our democratic values, not only as a system, but as an edifice that underpins the diversity and belonging that we cherish as modern Australia.  

They see something with the clarity of distance that sometimes we don't recognize clearly enough in ourselves, or simply we don't celebrate positively enough within our communities here. And what they celebrate in us, our stability, our protections to ensure responsible and representative government, our electoral system, our belief in human rights and rule of law, our ability to debate with civility, with respect, and indeed, with care, is central to who we are as Australians, and something I believe we all have a responsibility to preserve. In the words of Professor Justin Wolfers, as articulated in the 2025 Boyer lecture released just earlier this week, we're not just world class. We're the world's best. Australia is the world's best. And he says Australia's institutions are rare, valuable and worth defending, which returns me to the idea of care, kindness and respect for our institutions of government and our system of democracy is something that must be nurtured, renewed and preserved, where policy that benefits the Australian community is supported and celebrated and created in a way that comes from a place of care and people-centered. Policy is not a novel pursuit in Australia. At the very least, the aspiration to build the wellbeing and prosperity of people into the decisions of government has a long history, as Dame Enid Lyons expressed so powerfully in what was then called her maiden speech, her first speech to the parliament, in the shadow of her husband, of course. Dame Enid Lyons said this:  

‘The problems of government are problems of human values and human hearts and human feelings. That, it seems to me, is a concept of government that we might well cherish. I hope that I shall never forget that everything that takes place in this chamber goes out somewhere to strike a human heart, to influence the life of some fellow human being.’  

It's beautiful. Sitting there in the history of our country, in the parliament, talking about policy striking a human heart, influencing the lives of fellow human beings. That's what I think policy can do, and it's got great evidence, and relies on people who care deeply about where that policy is heading. Now you all know, in this room, you know universities and APPI, that we live in times that demand that level of engagement and that level of care. We certainly need it more in another part of our sectors, and that's the understanding and appreciation of our civics, which I do see up close. Many people do not know we have a Governor-General or a constitution. Younger students do, by the time they get to the end of high school, I think about 24% of Australian students understand anything about our civics. It's in a pretty parlous state. I think it needs a lot of care. As trust in institutions has declined and we allow misinformation to be ever present, there's a potential to destabilize and actively undermine our democracy, and it increases every day that we allow apathy or a lack of concern to rule the day. Our responsibility, I believe, to modern Australia’s future, is to invest in our thriving and strong democracy.  

And I believe the strength of our democracy is the strength of all of us, and the key to that is belonging and doing that with a sense of care for each other. Which brings me back, finally, to policy ecological economist Tim Jackson's recent book, The Care Economy. If you haven't read any of Tim's work as an ecological economist, he's brilliant. I had the great pleasure to work with Tim, side by side for many years on a sustainability committee for Air New Zealand in a really tough environment, to try to work out sustainability. But Tim was powerful in his advocacy about every industry needing to care about the future. And his book The Care Economy, which has just been published, concludes with a reflection on the nexus between understanding and action – of understanding a problem and knowing what to do about it through the design of good policy. It's a really great book, and well worth reading, and this is the challenge that you recognize and seek to resolve at APPI by identifying the key actors within the university and government sectors, not just New South Wales, where you started, but across the country, with new universities, new governments, and of course, at the federal level, it's what you do, harnessing research capability and policy expertise for the benefit of us all.  

In the last year, you've measured your policy impact in the areas of the economy and productivity, energy and the environment, and society and wellbeing. You seek multidisciplinary expertise. You amplify insights and ideas that emerge from critical assessment of facts and evidence, working with universities to build the research and policy capabilities fundamental to our national prosperity, and the overarching measure has been that the policy puts people in place at its center, it's public policy for the public good. I've said it already. My office has no politics or policies or money, but the nature of good policy and its formulation infused by care, is something I can reflect upon. I think the office should always do that. Over many years, I have had the privilege of engaging in the design of policies in a variety of settings, from universities, think tanks, business, women's and youth organizations, mental health organizations and even sport. And last Friday night, I attended the Good Design Awards in my role as incoming patron. And that's an evening that you think is all about designing things, beautiful things, productive things, working things. But there is a very special category for policy design, first awarded in 2024, it's now a highly regarded and vital recognition and excellence in policy design and innovation, and it is hard fought. Their nominations were extraordinary. The award emerges from Good Design Australia's belief that the best design helps shape better outcomes for people and our planet, and good policy as a combination of sophisticated, innovative and creative design of systems, governance and objectives, is as critical to that outcome as the best design object or project. In essence, they believe design thinking is core to solving our complex modern problems. The winning project was a framework for equitable global health investment, developed by Impact Global Health and designed by Anthologie. Other policy projects in the category addressed complex challenges in transport, the health sector, local government and the use of data and consumer preferences. So interesting, isn't it, to go to a night celebrating design and show that policy was actually the centre of it, and design thinking helping to shape our nation.  

You all know what these projects demonstrate conclusively: that there's nothing abstract about good policy. It's substantial in and of itself. Its outcomes are tangible and measurable. And as this institute, the Australian Public Policy Institute, tells us and shows us again in the Impact Report, at its best, it is consequential in delivering public good. As the Vice-Chancellor of this university opened and spoke about: connection and translating ideas have been critical to all of our aims. I would again add that good policy has at its core care, kindness and respect. That's its beating heart. It's always got to reflect what I'm now seeing so powerfully across modern Australia, where we are bound to one another by care, kindness and respect as a community of people who belong together and together belong to this country.