Saturday, 5 July 2025
Government House
Her Excellency the Honourable Margaret Beazley AC KC

Thank you, Uncle Allen. Your words have wrapped us in a warm welcome on many occasions here at Government House and elsewhere on Gadigal Country. I pay my respects to you and Gadigal Elders past, present, and future and extend that respect to all Elders.

To the Burrundi Theatre of Performing Arts, thank you for transcending time, bringing your rich and vibrant ceremonial tradition to everyone here. 

• The Honourable David Harris MP, Minister for Aboriginal Affairs and Treaty
• Special Guests - all

Welcome to Government House as we celebrate NAIDOC Week which commences tomorrow.

In this, its 50^th anniversary year, a ‘powerful milestone’ in the history of NAIDOC Week, the voices of Indigenous Australians resound loudly throughout the country, honouring culture, recognising resilience, celebrating achievements and saluting throughout the week the ‘The Next Generation,’ who, as this year’s theme articulates, will take Australia forward with their ‘Strength, Vision and Legacy’.  

It was those very same characteristics that impelled the founders of NAIDOC to create a week of national recognition, honouring the rights of Indigenous Australians.  It was their vision - and remains the vision - that the future of every Indigenous person be built on justice and equality   - a vision which should not only ‘go without saying’, but which must also be the reality. The key to opening the door to that reality is education, health, housing and pride.  

That same vision and pride must also be integral to the national consciousness.  NAIDOC Week, in turn, is integral to ensuring that is the case.  As Professor Lynette Riley, Co-Chair of the National NAIDOC Committee and Associate Professor and Chair of Aboriginal Education and Indigenous Studies at the University of Sydney, whom I invested here as an Officer in the Order of Australia in 2023 for “distinguished service to education, reconciliation and community”^[1] recently pointed out, NAIDOC Week 2025 is a celebration of “50 years of the continuity of Aboriginal people pushing and fighting for and using NAIDOC as a forum that has been picked up by every school in this country.”^[2] 

As we await the 2025 National NAIDOC Awards, we honour the Elders whose wisdom guides all of us and recognise those who teach, guide, support and encourage ‘the next generation’, including those here today who do that on a daily basis: those from community organisations, teachers, policy makers, university representatives and, of course, our very passionate Minister. 

Our nation is rich in talented First Nations young people, artists, performers, creatives, chefs, innovators, sports champions, cultural and community leaders and leaders-in-the-making. A weekly read of the Koori Mail demonstrates the breadth and depth of that talent.  

The national figures are encouraging. The Closing the Gap Dashboard reveals that of the children enrolled in preschool programs, 73.1% are attending for 15 hours or more;^[3] the number of students who have attained a Year 12 qualification or equivalent has grown, up 5% on the 2016 baseline year,^[4]  as has those who have completed a Certificate III or above.^[5] There has been the doubling of university enrolments in the decade 2011 to 2021,^[6] and higher rates of employment.^[7]    

These are significant statistics that tell us that there is a strong ‘present’ which will ground an exciting future.  We must not let that future slip away.  Nor can we assume that the work of the present is done.  Everyone in this room knows that is not the case. Mental health statistics are a huge concern.^[8]

In this, my last celebration of NAIDOC Week in this role, I particularly want to acknowledge the privilege that Dennis and I have had over the last six years of engaging with so many local Indigenous people across the State.  The warmth, humour, gentleness and intelligence we have experienced speaks of a very deep humanity.

That humanity is a national treasure as much as is the unique Indigenous culture which is so generously shared with all Australians.  

To each of you here today and those around the State who are enabling the next generation to have strength, a vision, and their own legacy – thank you.   

To ‘The Next Generation’! 

[1] Officer of the Order of Australia presented, in September 2023

[2] ‘What does NAIDOC mean to you?’ Interview with Lynette Riley: https://www.naidoc.org.au/about/naidoc-committee/aunty-prof-lynette-riley

[3] March 2025 update to Closing the Gap Dashboard: “Nationally in 2023, of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children enrolled in a preschool program in the YBFS, 73.1% attended for 15 hours or more in the reference week (figure SE3a.1).This is an increase from 64.0% in 2016 (the baseline year)”: https://www.pc.gov.au/closing-the-gap-data/dashboard/se/outcome-area3/attendance-in-early-childhood-education

[4] “Nationally in 2021, 68.1% of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people aged 20–24 years had attained Year 12 or equivalent qualification (figure CtG5.1). This is an increase from 63.2% in 2016 (the baseline year)”: https://www.pc.gov.au/closing-the-gap-data/dashboard/se/outcome-area5

[5] “Nationally in 2021, 47.0% of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people aged 25–34 years had completed non‑school qualifications of Certificate III or above (figure CtG6.1). This is an increase from 42.3% in 2016 (the baseline year)”: https://www.pc.gov.au/closing-the-gap-data/dashboard/se/outcome-area6

[6] “The number of First Nations students enrolled in university doubled, from 11,800 to 24,000”:

Education of First Nations People’, 7 September 2023, Australian Institute of Health and Welfare: https://www.aihw.gov.au/reports/australias-welfare/indigenous-education-and-skills

[7] https://www.pc.gov.au/closing-the-gap-data/dashboard/se/outcome-area

[8] “The latest data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) shows nearly 40 per cent of young Australians aged 16 to 24 — more than 1 million people — experienced a mental health disorder in the previous year, up from 26 per cent in 2007.”: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-10-05/abs-data-shows-mental-health-anxiety-depression-rising/102928618