Monday, 3 March 2025
Sydney Town Hall
Her Excellency the Honourable Margaret Beazley AC KC

Bujari gamarruwa, Diyn Babana Gamarada Gadigal Ngura

In greeting you in the language of this land’s Traditional Owners, the Gadigal of the Eora Nation, I pay my respects to Gadigal Elders, past, present and emerging and all First Nations people here present.

• The Honourable Prue Car MP, Deputy Premier, Minister for Education and Early Learning, Minister for Western Sydney, Member for Londonderry
• The Very Reverend Sandy Grant, Dean of St Andrew’s Cathedral
• Special Guests, including present and former Heads of School – and most importantly, St Andrew’s Cathedral Students

The past – as the saying goes – is ‘a foreign country’. And so, it might seem to the students sitting before me today, as we cast our minds back to this school’s past.  St Andrew’s Cathedral School was established 140 years ago, principally to train young male choristers for St Andrew’s Cathedral, the oldest Cathedral in our city.  Twenty-seven students were enrolled in that first year.

Today, your school has 1450 students, and is described as ‘a multi-campus, independent Anglican co-educational comprehensive and secondary day school.' Nothing could seem more different – indeed, that school of 140 years ago seems a very foreign place. 

But I ask you: Is the past really a foreign place?    

As you ponder that question - and being a lawyer, I know that the most obvious answer is ‘it depends on the context and the circumstances’ - I am going to tell you about something [which strictly is not in the past, but] which may occur in the future.  

At this very moment, scientists are monitoring the trajectory of a huge asteroid which goes by the rather unexciting name of 2024 YR4, but which is classified as a ‘city destroyer’, because when discovered in December last year, scientists estimated, initially, that there was 1.2 % chance of it hitting the Earth. Since then, those estimates have fluctuated up to a 3.1% chance and, more recently, significantly downgraded to less than 0.01% - which is a relief because if it were to hit Earth, it would be catastrophic – think of the extinction of the dinosaur.  

Even with the downgraded prediction, it is too close for scientific comfort and Australian space scientists Professor Ed Kruzins and Professor David Coward have become critically important in the NASA-led project which is tracking the asteroid. Australia provides a different angle from which to view the asteroid so that due to blind spots in space, there will be times when Australia will be the only place from which the asteroid can be seen.

Although the asteroid was discovered less than six months ago, it formed long before - about 4.6 billion years ago as part of the formation of the solar system. If it does hit the Earth that will not occur until 1932 - seven years into the future. However, its importance in the present is that if the tracking indicates that there is a likely risk of the asteroid falling to Earth, defensive action can be taken – such as crashing a spacecraft into it as NASA did in 2022, to a moon called Dimorphos, altering its celestial path.  

Speaking of moons, I should add that another problem has emerged in the last few days. As asteroid 2024 YR4 is presently tracking, it is on a trajectory to hit our moon.

Today’s celebration is not about science. But the point I seek to make is this:  We are all a product of our past, our upbringing, our education, our experiences. We build on all of that in the present. 

Sometimes we succeed, sometimes we don’t, sometimes we realise we have to change course, just as the scientists are tracking and making decisions as to what action they may need to take, adapting to circumstances as they change.

The future may not be what we planned, but because we have lived in the past and learned from our experiences, both past and present, we are able to change, adapt, look at things from different angles, and make our future our own. And that is exciting! 

So, from that perspective, the past is not a foreign place. It is part of, the commencement of a continuum.

Likewise, I suggest that your school of yesteryear, although so different from the St Andrew’s of today, is not a foreign place. And that is because from its commencement, its ethos has remained constant: an ethos of Christian values; the provision of an education to young people which sparks curiosity and inspires personal excellence; its culture of leadership, teamwork and collaboration; a place where care for others is its everyday practice. 

Charles Laseron who graduated from St Andrew’s in 1905 is an example of all these qualities. His is an inspiring story.  In 1912, he joined Douglas Mawson’s epic Antarctic expedition to the South Pole. His role was to set up the supply depot to enable the expedition’s scientific research, which included hauling the dredging gear in sub-zero temperatures across vast expanses of ice. For his contribution to the expedition, a chain of small ice-capped islands was named after him.  In 1915, for his account of the expedition, Laseron was awarded the Polar Medal.  His account of the expedition under the title, South with Mawson, was eventually published in 1947.

Laseron’s contribution to the Mawson expedition was an exemplar of what every good leader knows: Collaboration towards a common goal or common good is integral to leadership; it is the point where everyday things are achieved, as they must be for things to function well.  It is also the point at which brilliant discoveries may be made, and where transformational change happens.  

There are, of course, as many definitions of leadership, as there are books and theorists on the subject – a quick search of Amazon pulled up 70,000 results. It is best understood as a ‘process’ - as a ‘doing’ thing. But in truth it is as much an art as a science, employing skills of creativity, problem-solving, empathy and flexibility.

Students, it may not be obvious to you, but that is what your teachers do every day of the week. They are engaging in teamwork; they are constantly collaborating and problem-solving; being leaders.

And they are doing it for you.  They are making things work well on an everyday basis and along the way making transformational change in each of you personally and in the bigger decisions that are made for your school.

They are exemplars of the ethos of St Andrew’s and everything that goes with it. Their impact is huge, evidenced in the careers of the students who come through the doors of the school: careers in law and policy, science and research, Indigenous health, medicine, human rights, in the arts, sport and in education. It includes Anastasia Roy McGrath, now an educator in this school’s highly acclaimed Gawura school program.

It is this constant ethos over its 140 years which provides the answer to the question I posed at the beginning:  At St Andrew’s Cathedral school, the past is far from being a foreign place, it is your present and it is your future.  

In following the lesson of St Andrew, the first-called Apostle of Christ, may I also acknowledge St Andrew’s spiritual leaders and teachers and their important role as mentors in walking alongside each of you - our emerging leaders - in your journey. 

Congratulations, St Andrew’s Cathedral School on 140 years!