Friday, 19 June 2026
Stranger’s Room, NSW Parliament House
Her Excellency the Honourable Margaret Beazley ACKC

Thank you Robert.^[1]

As is my tradition, I greet you in the language of the Gadigal, Traditional Owners of these lands.

Bujari Gamarruwa

Diyn Babana, Gamarada Gadigal Ngura.

In doing so, I pay my respects to Gadigal Elders past, present, and emerging.

Ministers,^[2] Members of Parliament, representatives from Mission to Seafarers, and friends from across the maritime sector, as Patrons of the Mission to Seafarers Sydney, it is an honour for Dennis and I to join you to celebrate 145 years of service to seafarers.

I am fortunate to attend many anniversaries, but rarely do I get to celebrate an organisation that has served people over three different centuries, as is the case with the Mission to Seafarers, whose history in Sydney commenced towards the end of the 19^th century in 1881, and has continued throughout the 20^th century right through until today in the 21^st century.    

Although Mission to Seafarers was established in Sydney in 1881, your origins commenced half a century earlier and arose from some simple childhood curiosity. The year was 1835. The place was near the busy Bristol channel separating Southwestern England from Southern Wales. The childhood curiosity was that of the young son of the local Anglican minister, John Ashley, who asked his father: How do the people on all those ships go to church?

The question caught the good Reverend somewhat off guard as he looked out to sea contemplating the 400 or so ships in the channel. Turning his mind, his vocation, and his own shipbuilding skills to the task – he built a mission ship with a cabin that could also function as a chapel.^[3]

The Mission to Seafarers was thus launched, without fanfare, without the traditional bottle of champagne broken over the bow or a formal blessing befitting its origins.  

Today it is one of the largest seaport welfare organisations in the world, supported with great dedication by your President, Her Royal Highness The Princess Royal, Princess Anne.^[4] And just as ships, ports, and the world have changed, so too has the work of the Mission to Seafarers.

In the 19^th century, care for those at sea meant prayer, shelter, conversation and practical help on shore. That has remained constant, but today, in the 21^st century, it is all these things and more: a bus trip from the port to the city; help during illness; assistance with lost documents; giving access to Wi-Fi; providing a SIM card to enable easier connection to home; or simply being there to answer the phone in a crisis.

Here in New South Wales our busy ports at Newcastle, Sydney, Port Kembla and Eden see more than 110,000 seafarers arrive on our shores. In Sydney alone some 7,000 seafarers pass through our port each year.^[5] They are the seafarers who work on cargo ships coming from a whole host of countries, with variable working conditions and invariably without institutional support. 

Too often the reality of being shipbound for months on end only becomes visible during a crisis. We only have to think back to COVID-19, which forced all seafarers into lockdown with no one allowed to disembark. 

During those seemingly unending months, the seafarers found themselves without many basic necessities – anything from ear buds to hair clippers; often the seafarers lacked the means of contacting family, let alone having the luxury of pizza followed by some Krispy Kreme doughnuts which for so many on land is a Sunday night ‘comfort treat.’ It was those at Mission to Seafarers who knew where and how to resource goods, how to get them onto the ships, and most importantly how to provide solace.^[6] 

Some seafarers had already signed off their ships but were struggling to get home due to border closures. Throughout that entire period, the Mission provided support. After COVID, significantly due to these herculean efforts, the NSW Seafarers Welfare Fund was established by the Port Authority of NSW, NSW Ports and Port of Newcastle, enabling continuity of support for seafarers visiting Sydney.^[7] 

Four years later and the world was in crisis again with the closure of the Strait of Hormuz. Earlier this year, more than 20,000 seafarers found themselves stranded and vulnerable to attack.^[8]

I’m sure all of us have been at weddings and other celebrations where we see a movement above us and realise it is the drone filming the happy occasion, providing memories to be cherished. The contrast for those trapped in the Strait of Hormuz could not be more stark – the sight or sound of a drone is a signal that today might be the day their vessel is bombed or shot at.^[9] Just as in COVID, these were mariners who had boarded their ship, not expecting to return home for a few months, but certainly not having signed up to be stranded in the Middle East for an unknown period of time or to find themselves vulnerable to imminent danger as is the case in the Strait of Hormuz.     

And for those of us on land, it is important to remember that the ships bring the goods that we buy and consume daily.  Going back to that question of curiosity, I wonder whether any of us stop and ask ourselves how did the goods we buy get on to the supermarket shelf, or think about the fact that the seafarers who bring us the goods we consume daily spend months on board, sacrificing the comforts of family and home to earn a living to support their families. These ‘people of the sea’ are all too often simply ‘not thought about.’ But Mission to Seafarers never forgets them. In a word, Mission to Seafarers humanises global trade.   

Thank you to the Mission – to the many Chaplains, staff, volunteers, donors, Board members, welfare partners and supporters who have helped the seafarers who have come to our shores now for 145 years. 

As long as there are oceans to cross, there will be seafarers needing your support. To your next 145 years!