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Australia Day Luncheon - Premier's Speech
23 January
2008
The Value of Giving
Speech by the Premier of Victoria
John Brumby MP
To the annual Melbourne Australia Day Luncheon
Wednesday, 23 January 2008
I would like to begin by acknowledging the traditional owners and custodians of the land on which we stand – the Kulin Nation – and pay my respect to their Elders and any other Elders who are with us today.
January 26 has come to mean many things to many people.
It is, equally, a time –
• To celebrate the events that have shaped our nation since 1788;
• To consider the long road to reconciliation;
• And to welcome new citizens into our community.
But Australia Day is also an opportunity to recognise achievements, and identify the values which have made our nation great.
And today I would like to focus on achievement and the values that will sustain us into the future.
I would like to begin by recognising the achievements of three remarkable Victorians who have made an enormous contribution to our community –
• Dame Elisabeth Murdoch;
• Victor Smorgon;
• And Loti Smorgon.
Thousands of Australians have benefited from their generosity and hard work – across a range of sectors including the arts, medical science and children’s health.
And it is a great honour to congratulate our Australia Post Legends for 2008.
Australia in general – and Victoria in particular – have been built on precisely this kind of generosity and hard work.
When I look back through history and ask ‘what is it that has made our State strong’ some defining characteristics come to mind –
• First – our ideas and enterprise;
• Secondly – our generous community spirit;
• And third – our unique cultural diversity.
What do I mean by ideas and enterprise?
Just over 100 years ago, at the turn of the 19th century, Melbourne enjoyed the highest standard of living in the world.
Our wealth was driven by ideas and innovation.
• Melbourne had the largest cable-tram network in the world;
• We were home to Australia’s first telephone exchange;
• We produced the world’s most advanced agricultural and mining machinery;
• And we constructed more tall buildings than any city in Europe.
We were also leaders in the creative economy.
In 1898, Herbert Booth, the son of the Salvation Army’s founder, shot Australia’s first narrative film in Melbourne, entitled “Hungry Man Stealing Bread (And His Arrest by Police)”.
He then invented the concept of the film sequel with “Prison Gate Brigade (Welcoming Released Prisoner at Gaol Gates)”.
In the years and decades that followed, Victorian scientists were also responsible for some of the world’s most significant medical and scientific innovations –
• The first Australian-trained scientists to win a Nobel Prize for Medicine – Sir Macfarlane Burnett and Sir John Eccles – were both Victorian;
• And the world’s first bionic ear was developed and implanted by Professor Graeme Clarke here in Melbourne 30 years ago this year.
Today, of course, Victoria remains up there with the very best in the world, through –
• Our new Synchrotron;
• Our National Stem Cell Centre;
• And our leadership in medical research.
When people talk about the great scientific research centres in the world, they now talk about London, Boston, and Melbourne.
That fact was borne out by The Times Higher Education Supplement naming Melbourne alongside Boston and London as one of only three cities in the world with two biomedical precincts in the global top 20 biomedical rankings.
That leads me to generosity.
Because Victoria – and Victorians – have been defined by something else as well.
Our generosity as a community.
Melbourne’s position as Australia’s leading philanthropic State is well documented – thanks to the extraordinary generosity of people such as Sidney Myer, the Pratts, Alfred Felton, Helen Macpherson, Walter and Eliza Hall; the Smorgon and Murdoch families; and the many others with us today.
Three quarters of Australia’s philanthropic foundations are now based in Melbourne.
And, according to the Encyclopedia of Melbourne –
“The voluntarism that sustained the colony’s charitable and cultural institutions reflected the acceptance of the concept of ‘giving back’ among many of those who benefited from the economic boom of the gold rush years and beyond.”
Historically, our voluntary work ethic has been just as strong.
And many people would say it has been the mesh that has held our community together –
• From the large numbers of women who donated their time through the Red Cross during World War One;
• To Melbourne’s response to World War Two – with auxiliary police officers and air raid wardens all volunteers.
Half a century on, volunteers are still the backbone of our community.
According to the 2006 Census –
• More than one million Victorian volunteers provide $10 billion in unpaid services each year;
• The number of Victorian volunteers aged under-25 is almost the same as the number of volunteers over-65;
• And the rate of volunteering outside Melbourne is around 40% – the highest rate anywhere in Australia.
Of course, this generous community spirit has been underpinned by another defining Victorian value – cultural diversity.
Take the Gold Rush, for example.
Immigrants leaving Britain in 1852 bought more tickets to Melbourne than to any other destination in the world – and at the height of the Gold Rush one in five men in Victoria were Chinese.
The Gold Rush brought new people, new skills, and a new way of doing things to Victoria.
I have always believed that Australia’s defining feature has been cultural diversity and particularly our post-war migration program.
Our Italian, Greek and Jewish communities to name a few have transformed the cultural and economic fabric of Victoria. More recently, families from places including Vietnam, South East Asia, Turkey, Macedonia, Iraq, Afghanistan and Africa have helped to make Victoria socially and economically stronger.
Today, we shine out as an example and beacon of inspiration to the rest of the world –
• With over 40% of Victorians born overseas or with at least one parent who was born in another country;
• And over 20% of Victorians speaking a language other than English at home.
This rich cultural diversity is now one of Victoria’s greatest strengths.
And I am not alone in that view.
The National Australia Day Council has conducted a number of studies in recent years to identify just how Australians see themselves.
That research has revealed, among other things –
• That more Australians than ever before are taking great pride in our cultural diversity;
• We also think of ourselves as innovative and altruistic;
• And we greatly value the concept of the quiet achiever.
So where does that take us as a nation?
What do the events of our past – and the values that Australians hold today – tell us about our future?
I believe what will ultimately define us as a community is our willingness to put something back into it.
Dame Elizabeth herself has said that giving to the community is one of the most important and rewarding things people can do and that “it is not a question of how much you can give, but where you give, and how it is managed.”
And I will conclude with just a brief story to illustrate that point.
It’s a story about Coleraine – a little town west of Hamilton – where my parents live on a family farm and where, on and off, I spent a good part of my youth.
In the 1970s, my father introduced me to a man called Peter Francis – a retired shearer, timber-cutter and bridge-builder who lived hard, worked hard, and was in generally poor health because of his emphysema.
Peter had a dream to transform an abandoned quarry and rubbish dump over looking Coleraine – The Points – into a huge native arboretum.
He won local approval and then started the process of physically planting the trees.
He was often short of breath, and on many days he would struggle to plant just a few trees.
But over the course of a decade, he planted more than 10,000 trees and developed what is now the largest Australian native arboretum in the southern hemisphere.
Peter passed away in 1989, but for over a decade, he never asked for a cent, never took a cent – he wanted simply to put back into his community and create a great legacy for the future.
His project bought a community together and created a lasting community asset – supported strongly by a number of generous benefactors and particularly, the family of Geoff and the late Helen Handbury, and Dame Elisabeth herself.
Peter’s story is important because it reminds us of the power of giving and the generous community spirit that has helped define our State.
Today, therefore, I would like to do two things –
• One – to thank the countless Victorians who devote their time, energy and funds to others;
• And two – to call on those who don’t to get on board.
In short, I am urging Victorians – and Victorian companies – to up the ante when it comes to giving – and follow in the footsteps of people like Peter Francis and our 2008 Legends.
Think about what kind of change you want to make.
Then think about what you can do to bring about that change.
• Join a community group or not-for-profit organisation.
• Bequest something in your will to a community group;
• Link up with a local volunteer group through a website like www.govolunteer.com.au;
• Contact a volunteer organisation like www.greatconnections.com.au – which connects volunteers who have professional skills and business experience with not-for-profit organisations;
• Train a guide dog, as the Governor and Jan de Kretser are doing;
• Follow that great Australia tradition of volunteering for an emergency service organisation – the Country Fire Authority, the SES, the Volunteer Coastguard, Lifesaving Victoria or St John's Ambulance.
• And if you are an employer, getting involved in corporate social responsibility programs and releasing staff to allow them to get involved in an organisation or group of their choice.
The world we live in is changing rapidly.
We face different challenges and issues than we did 150 years ago.
But the values that defined us then are the values which will sustain and guide us in the years ahead.
And it is those defining values – ideas, innovation, giving and diversity – that will make us an even stronger, more inclusive, more compassionate and more successful nation.
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