University of Canberra Education Graduation Ceremony Occasional Address

I feel like I've got the best job in the world, but teachers have the most important.

That’s why I did this.

It’s an advertising campaign I ran a few years ago, right around the country, telling the stories of teachers like Kerri-Ann.

I bet everyone here has a teacher just like this who helped you get here.

I know I do.

The first thing I did when I got this job was I went back to my old primary school and gave my first grade teacher a hug.

Her name is Mrs Fry.

She’s still there. At the same school, Cabramatta Public. Still teaching Year 1. She’s been there now for 48 years.

When I was in 2nd grade, she wasn't there for a few months.

I didn’t know it at the time, but she was in a car accident.

A really bad one.

It was during the Christmas holidays.

She was in a coma.  A priest administered her the last rites.

Both her legs were broken. And her hips. Her spleen was ruptured. Her lungs collapsed.

She was in and out of hospital for the next three years.

She’s still got partial paralysis on one side.

Guess what the first thing she said was when she regained consciousness?

“Will I be out in time for the start of school?”

Mrs Fry is no ordinary person.

Teaching is no ordinary job.

And today is also no ordinary day.

I want to acknowledge the Traditional Owners of the land we’re meeting on and their elders past and present.

And I want to thank you Bill for inviting me to speak today.

I know how much days like this mean to you.

Your mum spent years helping young people just like the graduates here become teachers.

And now you’re doing the same thing – sending off another generation to do the work she loved so much.

I also want to acknowledge Chancellor Lisa Paul.

Like Bill, I’ve had the privilege to work with and learn from you over many years.

And can I also congratulate Wendy McCarthy AC.

A teacher, a former Chancellor of this university, a torch bearer in advocating for the rights of women in this country, and a most deserving recipient of this honorary doctorate today.

And most importantly I want to congratulate every one of you.

This is a big deal.

It’s not just about the cap and the gown and the certificate you might put in a frame and hang on the wall.

It’s more than that.

You have done a mountain of work to get here.

I’m sure there’ve been good days and bad.

But you made it.

And it’s made you.

This is your day to soak all that in, and celebrate everything you’ve done, and everything you’ve become.

But it’s not just your day.

Up the back, I can see mums and dads. Brothers and sisters. Boyfriends and girlfriends. Husbands and wives. Grandmas and grandpas. And I can see kids.

I can see the people who love you and believe in you, maybe more than you even believe in yourself.

And today belongs to them a little bit too.

There’s someone else I want you to think about today.

The teacher you thought of when you saw that video.

The one you can’t forget.

The one who believed in you.

Maybe they’re the reason you’re here right now.

Now just imagine how they would feel if they knew you were thinking of them.

We need more teachers. We also need more architects and designers. Producers and project managers. Surveyors and storytellers.

We also need more nurses and paramedics. More engineers and scientists.

We need more people with more skills.

That means opening the doors of our universities wider.

And that’s started.

When I got this job – about the same time many of you started at UC – 274,000 Australians started a university degree.

Next year that number will be 354,000.

That’s an increase of about 30 per cent.

That’s what I mean by opening up the doors of our universities.

And it’s just the start.

In the next few weeks, legislation will hopefully go through the Parliament that will open those doors even wider, especially for kids from poor families and from the regions and the most remote parts of Australia.

About 50 per cent of young Australians today have a university degree.

You’re about to become part of that.

But it’s not the case everywhere.

In Western Sydney, where I’m from, it’s about half that.

And in lots of parts of the country it’s lower than that.

That’s not because of a lack of talent.

Talent is everywhere, it’s opportunity that’s not.

I don’t want us to be a country where your chances in life depend on who your parents are, where you’re from, what school you went to, or the colour of your skin.

But the truth is we are.

If you are an Indigenous boy today you are more likely to go to jail than university.

That’s the truth.

And if you are a kid from a poor family, you are not just less likely to go to university.

You’re less likely to go to childcare, you’re more likely to fall behind at school and you’re less likely to finish it.

If that’s you, you have climbed an even bigger mountain to get here than most.

I want to make that path easier for those who follow you.

That’s what drives everything I do.

From fixing the funding of our schools to all the reform that goes with it.

But none of it is possible without you. And what you will do.

If you have decided to ‘be that teacher’ I suspect you know that too.

The kids who walk into your classroom will all bring very different lives with them.

Some will have a story read to them every night.

Some won’t have a book at home at all.

Some will arrive with all the confidence in the world.

Some will need you to help them find it.

Help them do things they didn’t think were even possible.

There will be moments when you see it happen.

A child who reads a whole page without your help.

Who has another go when last week they would have given up.

A young person who nails an essay, without ChatGPT, after you helped them work out what they wanted to say.

Little victories that maybe only you and their mum and dad might notice.

But those little victories change lives.

And not just for one generation.

They can change what that child grows up to imagine for their own children too.

Little victories that might bring the next generation here to this place on their graduation day.

So, soak it in.

Take the photos.

Hug the people who helped you get here.

Tell them what it means to you that they did.

And know this. One day, not too far away, there is someone out there who will do the same for you.

Who will stop you and say thank you.

Remind you of what you did that made them stronger, braver or faster.

That made them believe in you.

That made them believe in themselves.

There will be notes. Gifts. Little mementos like you saw in the ad.

Things you’ll keep in a drawer and take out every so often to look at.

They’ll mean a lot.

They’ll tell a story of the difference you made.

But they won’t tell the whole story.

Because for everyone who stops you and says thank you, there will be thousands more who think it, I promise you that.

I was on a subway train in New York about 20 years ago.

And I saw an ad.

A really simple ad.

Black background. White writing.

It said:

“You remember your first-grade teacher’s name. Who will remember yours?”

I remember Mrs Fry.

And they will remember you.