Monday, 1 September 2025
Government House Rose Garden
Her Excellency the Honourable Margaret Beazley AC KC

Bujari gamarruwa

Diyn Babana Gamarada Gadigal Ngura

I welcome you in the language of the Gadigal, Traditional Owners of the land we gather on this afternoon. I pay my respects to Gadigal Elders, past, present and emerging.

On this beautiful first day of Spring, I might be forgiven for waxing lyrical about the rose or, at least, for summoning up the poets who did. From Sappho and the ancient Greeks who called the rose the “queen of flowers”; Rilke who wrote obsessively about roses, including the epitaph for his gravestone, giving rise to a myth that he died from the prick of a rose thorn while picking roses for an unrequited love, and Australian poet, Dorothy Porter, who wrote of the “wild roses with an impossible number of petals,” the rose has inspired the imagination of poets.

Then there was the 11^th century Persian poem, the Rubáiyát, attributed to Omar Khayyam, and made popular by the pre-Raphaelites in the late Victorian era and early decades of the 20^th century. It includes the lines:

Each morn a thousand roses brings, you say:

Yes, but where leaves the rose of yesterday?^[1]

Today we reflect on that ‘yesterday’ – the “100 years of journeys” of the Big Brother Movement. The journeys of 12,000 ‘Little Brothers’ during the period 1925-1982 saw young men travel from their homes in the UK to start a new life in Australia and receive training and jobs in agricultural and trade industries. They, in turn, contributed their skills to a rapidly growing nation. It is a story that is well-known by everyone here.

Emerging out of that programme has been the BBM Global Footprint Scholarship Program which has taken BBM to its centenary with its vision of “young people growing a better, more sustainable world.” Since 1983, BBM’s Global Footprints Scholarship program has seen more than 1,100 young Australians travel overseas and return to Australia after undertaking valuable work experience in the trades, agriculture and horticulture.

Today one of those scholars, Sian Thomasson is with us, awarded a Scholarship in 2023 which took her to the UK and France, beginning at the Royal Horticultural Society’s Chelsea Flower Show, where she was part of the team that built the Sanctuary Garden, which was awarded a gold medal and Best in Category. Sian then completed a placement at Claude Monet’s iconic garden in Giverny, France.

Today, the Government House Rose Garden celebrates the BBM Centenary by planting a rose bearing its name, one of the highest tributes in the rose community. 

The BBM Centenary Rose was bred in Australia, over several years, by well-known rose breeders, Ruth Griffiths and her husband Richard Walsh, and cultivated exclusively to honour BBM’s rich legacy. It was grown by 5th generation rose grower, Reuben Nieuwesteeg.

Reuben’s story, too, has an offshoot which is a story of migration and transplantation. Today, Reuben runs the Wild Rose Nursery in Victoria, specialising in old-world and species roses, as did his grandfather Sebastian who started growing roses almost 80 years ago in the Netherlands.

With a living connection to family, history, to gardens and community, BBM’s Centenary Rose will grow and flower here beside other commemorative roses: the Governor Marie Bashir Rose,[2] the Governor Macquarie Rose,[3] the Governor’s Wife Rose[4], the Fire Fighter Rose,[5] and the 100 Not Out Rose, planted to honour the Centenary of the Rose Society of NSW,[6] in 2013.

Ruth, Richard and Reuben, thank you for creating this BBM Centenary Rose, which has already made the Top 10 Roses list in the May edition of Gardening Australia magazine. When in abundant flower later in spring, the 10cm blooms of the Centenary Rose will emerge from yellow centres, tightly packed with soft pink petals; the pink rose, dating back to ancient Persia, being a symbol of hope, of youth and of gratitude. Nothing could better capture the history and essence of BBM. 

[1] Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyam 1859, stanza 9: https://www.poetseers.org/spiritual-and-devotional-poets/sufi-poets/omar-khayyam/rubaiyat/rubaiyat-verse-9-12/

[2] Planted 30 June 2015, a gift from the National Rose Society

[3] Planted 15 November 2010 to commemorate the bicentenary of Governor Macquarie

[4] Planted 24 August 2017

[5] Planted 8 March 2009 to commemorate the NSW Fire Services and Rural Fire Services after the 2009 Bushfire Season tragedies

[6] Planted 14 February 2013