Sean Gordon AM

Thank you. Firstly, I’d just like to acknowledge country, pay my respects to the Gadigal people of the Eora nation. I bring people from my people, the Wangkumarra and Barkintji. I acknowledge all of these people in the room today, but more importantly I acknowledge the Chancellor, the Vice Chancellor, members of the Council, staff, distinguished guests, graduates and family and friends.

First of all, can I just say, listening to all of those names come out, what a fantastic, diverse country that we are. Absolutely wonderful to see these young people graduating and moving into the world of work. You’ll be grateful that today on my drive down – I live in Newcastle, and on the drive down that there was an accident on the freeway, so I diverted off the freeway, and I jumped on the train at Morrissett, and in jumping on the train, I managed to get a nine-page address down to one page. So you’ll be very grateful that I’ve been able to do that. I thank the university for giving me this opportunity to speak to you today, and it’s quite tough when you get an email and a phone call to say, ‘would you be interested in doing an occasional address?’

From that point on, I’ve been sitting down and writing and writing and trying to work out what do I say to young graduating students about one, my experiences, but also to provide some advice on how you move into the future. And I guess, you know, when I look back at my experiences, I grew up in a small community out of western NSW. Education wasn’t important to my family, and in leaving school I didn’t graduate with a school certificate of any such thing. I was just happy to get out of the place. What I will say is since leaving school, I’ve done 10 years of study at this very university. But I’ve also finished off a trade in carpentry and joinery, I’m a clerk of works, and I’ve gone on to be a practising builder, and now I’m not a developer, but I’m in the development space, providing opportunity and utilising land that’s been provided back to Aboriginal people to ensure one, that we create an economic base, and two, that we provide benefit to our community to be able to grow and prosper.

In putting together today, I thought it interesting that I just happen to be here graduating with a teaching degree and also linking that into design, architecture and building. I found it a pretty good fit, that I’ve got experience in both those areas. But for me, I also saw it as an opportunity to talk about some of our experience as Indigenous Australians, and to just share with you today where we’re at as a nation, where we’re at as Indigenous people, and to try and look – try to work forward as to how we make this country great. And one way of believing, and absolutely believing, the one way in which we make this country great, is if we recognise the first people within our constitution. That for me is probably the most important step moving forward over the next couple of years as we start to head into that space. And the reason I say that is within this wonderful country of ours, we’re still not taking the opportunity for Aboriginal people to find their rightful place within our current environment, with where we are today as a nation, and I honestly believe that we will not heal as a nation and that we will not fully come together as a nation until we deal with this ongoing issue. And for me, when we look at our history, you know, Australia has some clearly defining moments. One of those defining moments is our 50,000 years old Indigenous history – 50,000 years of Indigenous history and continuous history today, that there are many Indigenous people right across the country still practising their traditional custodians, customs, still practising their Indigenous language, ceremonies and so on. But we then look at our 200-year history of European settlement, and it absolutely changed the country. It brought new industry to the country, new innovation, new ways of doing things to the country and Aboriginal people, like all people, we’ve had to adapt to that. But then we look at this wonderful migration of multicultural people coming from all over the country different ethnic backgrounds, coming in and making this country even greater than what it was.

You know, together we are probably one of those countries in the world that we’ve managed to get the balance right. We’ve managed to create a country that is absolutely moving forward and thriving. But as I said, the one unfinished business right now is how do we move forward and recognise Indigenous people in the constitution? And I say this, and it’s not an easy task, that if we look at – there’s been 44 referendums held in this country, and only eight of them have passed. The one that’s had most success was the 1967 referendum. The 1967 referendum, 90.77 per cent of the country voted to support changing that referendum to allow Indigenous people, again, to be partly recognised, but not to the extent that we need to. So for me, in my role, and I have many hats that I wear, I’m probably the most underpaid chairperson in the country, in that I chair the National Empowered Communities Leadership Group, which is a national reform of saying to the government that we can’t continue to move forward the way we are. We can’t continue to spend $34 billion dollars in Indigenous affairs and not address the disparity gap between Indigenous people and non-Indigenous people. We can’t continue to move forward as a nation, expecting that that is okay. The Prime Minister announced this year that where they’ve had massive movement in addressing the disparity gap between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians is year 12 completion, and those students then going on to university and graduating from university. University is absolutely crucial to our success as a people. Education is critical to ensure that our people are moving away from disadvantage and moving away from welfare dependency and are moving into a system that allows us to develop and grow. And you here as young graduates all have a role to play in that. As you move forward in your careers, it’s not just getting stuck in the engine room of the offices that you might go in and work for, but it’s thinking about how can I contribute? What can I do in my role as I move forward as a young graduate into the workforce? What can I change and contribute? And for me, that is really, you know, the success of how we move forward and what we do in life, it’s about finding meaning, it’s about finding purpose, and I know that my purpose and my meaning is, quote, simple. It’s about empowerment – it’s about empowering Indigenous people to ensure that my people are able to make decisions for themselves and be able to move themselves out of this current place of despair that we exist in. It’s about recognition – it’s ensuring that my people are recognised as the first people of this country so that we then come up with where our rightful place is, so that we continue to move forward together. But it’s also about cultural embrace, and it’s about us recognising and celebrating each of our cultures. But more importantly, celebrating and recognising my culture, the longest continuous surviving culture in the world, still being practised today.

It’s working out how do we do these things? And as I said, that is my purpose – that is why I do things. Empowerment, recognition, and cultural embrace. As you move forward in your careers, in your early careers, you will start to find where you fit, and you’ll potentially find where you don’t fit. But you will start to understand why it is you’ve been put on this earth – why it is you’ve entered into the particular degree that you’ve done. And it may be that the chosen path that you’ve taken isn’t the path that you’ll end up heading on, but it will lead you in the direction that you need to. For me, it is absolutely critical that you find purpose and meaning in what it is you do. And from advice, I guess, as a young 46-year-old on this earth, I would ask you that – and I’ve seen it so many times: young people graduating or going into the workforce and getting stuck in this rut, and ending up in a place of unhappiness, and not finding joy in what it is they do or satisfaction in what they do. It’s you there trying to find out – making hard decisions to get yourself out of that space and go out and say ‘Well, this is what I want to do.’ And sometimes it’ll take you on a track. It may be the path less travelled, but you’ll generally find where it – you’ll generally find the end of that path, and it will lead you to a point where you’re happy.

But I asked you as parting words is one, find meaning and purpose in your life. I’ve seen so many people go through the process of life, only to realise that they’ve not lived. And I’ll say that again:  I’ve seen so many people go through the process of life, only to realise that they’ve not lived. The critical thing for you to find is how do you live life? How do you find that one thing that you’re passionate about, that drives you, that wants you to work hard to ensure that you’re making a change? I wish you every success in your future. Congratulations on your graduation today, and well done to you all.