Rev Timothy Costello

Chief Executive Officer, World Vision Australia
LLB, DipEd (Monash) BDivinity (BTS Ruschlikon), MTheol (Whitley), Doctorate of Sacred Theology

Timothy Costello addressed graduates from the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences and Institute for Sustainable Futures in the Great Hall, University of Technology, Sydney on Friday 3 May 2013, 10.30am.

Tim Costello studied economics, law and education at Monash University followed by theology at the International Baptist Seminary in Rueschlikon, Switzerland. He has also received a Masters Degree in Theology from the Melbourne College of Divinity and holds an Honorary Doctorate from the Australian Catholic University.

Tim is a global leader in social justice who has made significant contributions to sustainability and to the alleviation of poverty in the world. He complements and supports the University’s commitment to social and global sustainability.

Since 2004, Tim has worked as Chief Executive of World Vision Australia where he has been instrumental in ensuring issues related to global poverty are on the national agenda. As the CEO, Tim has long been the voice of social conscience for many Australians, having led debates on issues such as gambling, urban poverty, homelessness, reconciliation and substance abuse.

Prior to joining World Vision Australia, Tim served as the Minister at the Collins Street Baptist Church in Melbourne, and as Executive Director of Urban Seed, a Christian not-for-profit outreach service for the urban poor.

After ordination as a Baptist Minister in 1984, Tim established a vibrant and socially active ministry at St Kilda Baptist Church between 1986 and 1994. In 1993, he was elected as Mayor of St Kilda and then served as the National President of the Baptist Union of Australia between 1999 and 2002.

Tim’s passion for justice and for helping to alleviate the suffering of poor communities in the developing world quickly became evident when the devastating Asia tsunami struck on Boxing Day, 2004. His leadership at that time helped to inspire an unprecedented outpouring of generosity from the Australian public, with World Vision Australia raising more than $100 million for tsunami relief.

In 2005, Tim was made an Officer of the Order of Australia (AO), and he was named Victorian of the Year in 2004 and then again in 2006.

Tim is a successful author with notable books including; Another Way to Love; Streets of Hope: Finding God in St Kilda; Tips from a Travelling Soul Searcher; and Wanna Bet? Winners and Losers in Gambling’s Luck Myth.

Tim currently serves as Chair of the Community Council of Australia, the Australian Churches Gambling Taskforce and the National Australia Bank’s Social Responsibility Advisory Council. He has also served on numerous boards and committees, including the Alcohol Education and Research Foundation, the Australian National Development Index, Business for Millennium Development, the Australian Council for International Development and as co-chair of Make Poverty History.

In his role as CEO of World Vision Australia, Tim has developed a strong and cooperative relationship with the UTS Institute of Sustainable Futures. This engagement includes joint doctoral research programmes and shared doctoral research grants, a partnership with One Just World from 2007-2009 and the development of a key advocacy document between UTS, World Vision and WaterAid on “Getting the Basics Right” that led to a major scale-up in aid investment in water, sanitation and hygiene,

It is a great honour for the University of Technology, Sydney to award Mr Tim Costello an Honorary Degree of Doctor of Letters (honoris causa), in recognition of his outstanding contributions to the advancement of society both in Australia and internationally and his outstanding contribution to the achievement of the University’s mission.

Speech

Thank you Chancellor.

To family, friends and graduates my congratulations, It’s a great honour for me to be here.

I come from a little village south of Sydney you wouldn’t of heard of called Melbourne, to join the largely Sydney community in this day of celebration of extraordinary focus and work, this is indeed a great honour.

I was simply amazed, probably as you were listening to just the range of thesis investigations, at the extraordinarily different nuances, diversity, topics and concepts. I sat there just marvelling at the diversity of a changing world, with such different social experiences that humans are called to reflect on in a disciplined and intentional way with supervisors who guide that reflection. I guess my thoughts then went, given this profoundly fast daily, to the changing world and experiences.

How do we cope with that change whilst being committed to things that are unchanging? The chancellor has spoken a little about that, about ethics, about a focus on doing good with your life for humanity, things that do not change even whilst we cope with the extraordinary change. In future decades, equally important congregations like this that will award new doctorates and degrees on experiences we can’t even name now let alone anticipate. Yet it is that unchanging part I think is the most significant part. It’s been with humanity, and those who have thought about these issues throughout times, through centuries and the millennium.

The Greeks of course were famous for asking the question, “What is virtue?” “What is a good life?” Some of you are familiar with Stoic philosophers, who said, “We should have indifference” By indifference they meant neutrality. Neutrality toward things we cannot change. There may be natural disasters, and premature death, disability and all sorts of things that we were taught by the Stoics are very difficult to change, therefore, indifference and not frustration.

Choosing those things we can challenge is important which is why I’m very proud. It looks like we’re going to get a national disability scheme, something I know we as a nation can deal with.

The Stoics said secondly, “have discipline”, which is what academic pursuit is. Control over the things you can control, maybe indifference to those things you can’t, and real discipline to those things you can.

Other Stoic schools were cynics who said, “All of change is actually ephemeral and nonsense, let’s just stay committed to nature.” The cynics were those who literally abandoned all protocols, broke taboos just to get back to nature.

Diogenes, a cynic philosopher, said, “Well the animals mate in public, and he mated in the market square.” To actually make the point that getting back to nature is blowing away taboos, and blowing away all the human constructs. The cynical approach again trying to define what unchanging nature is.

Epicureans today think of pursue pleasure and joy and happiness, in fact, Epicureanism today is the very reverse of what Epicurious meant. When Epicurious said, “Humans have great pleasure in drinking and in sex and in partying and, therefore, drink and party and live for now, that’s happiness.” He actually said those things do not bring happiness.

The things that bring happiness are friendship, integrity, living out your values and solitude. In fact, Epicurious was teaching the very opposite of what we think epicurism is today. It’s not in eating and drinking, and allowing our hormones to pop and to do whatever we want that actually brings pleasure.

If you want to read a very good book just out, which is really restating Epicurious’ book its, Hugh Mackay’s latest book “A good life”. Hugh Mackay, a social writer and thinker about Australian society says, “we are pursuing happiness, and we are not happy”. This driven materialism and I must say when I come back from Africa and Asia, always hits me when I see how Australia seems to be having this relentless drive for more. I don’t get it.

Hugh Mackay is saying this actually isn’t bringing us happiness it’s a statement of Epicurious. Go deeper, find what actually is true, and that is unchanging in all the change that is around.

I’m proud that one of the graduates today is my colleague Dr. Keren Winterford, whose been working at world vision on our programs to define how we say to communities when we leave, when the money stops, we have built sustainability after 15 years of doing water and health and food and bedding, agricultural yield and schools.

When we leave and the money stops, who will sustain the work we’ve helped you do in these communities? Along with others in world vision, she has developed a citizens voice in action program, saying “You have a voice, you need to track where your government education budget went, and it’s health budget went, palaces, weapons, Swiss bank accounts. When we’re gone, if this is to be sustainable, you have to put pressure on them!” Really saying, “you are citizens with rights putting the acid back on corrupted elites!”

That’s serving humanity. So much of what you studied can and will serve humanity but only if you’re clear about what is unchanging. What are the bedrock things you plant your feet on? Solid ground you occupy?

It brought back memories, this graduation, of my own life journey, and I remember my mother in year 12 taking me aside and saying “Tim now you’re in year 12” back in 1973. I’m so old I didn’t just study Ancient history, I lived through it.

In 1973, she said you’ve really got to work hard, when I asked why she said, “well we would really hope you’d go to university” only about 8% of people back in 1973 went to university. I said, “Oh, right”. Yes, I studied hard I got into law at Monash, I’d climbed the first rung of the ladder.

Education leads to careers, which leads to life.

We had a celebration at a Chinese restaurant, and after the celebration my mother took me aside and said “we’re really proud, but now you’ve got into Law Tim, you are really going to have to study hard.” And when I asked “why!” she said “well not everybody who does law at the end gets a job, gets articles, it’s only the best students”.

I had a great time at university, and I did well enough to get articles. I’d climb the second rung of the ladder, good in year 12, and now articles on a law degree.

We had another family celebration at the same Chinese restaurant, by then I had a younger brother following me into law. My mother took me aside again and she said, “We’re really proud of you, your father and I. You’ve got articles, and then she said to me, now that you got articles, but now Tim you know you’re really going to have to work hard” and when I asked “why?” She said, “well not everyone who gets articles for the first job gets kept on only those who do well.”

I had a picture year 12, finished university, articles completed, above me another eight rungs and one day I might be a partner in this firm if I worked hard and kept on going.

It’s really important to say that it’s a structure of life that all of us honour, but for me the unchanging bit is recognising a second ladder, it’s a ladder I call vocation.

A vocation is actually asking the question why am I here, what is this all about. I remember I had set up an organisation, urban seed, working with mentally ill, homeless, drug-affected that had a detox unit for drug-affected people. I remember sitting in the gutter with a young person who I was trying to convince to get off heroin, go into detox in Melbourne, and I said something easy for me, a person of Christian faith, rolled off my tongue casually said to him “you know what? I think God made you”.

What staggered me was that he burst into tears. I’d wondered what I’d said. What upset him? Through the tears, he literally blurted out “God made me? My old man told me I’m just an accident. I’ve only ever felt an interruption, a burden. God made me?”

Here was this first rung of the ladder. Is there a point to this? Is there purpose if I’m not just a biological freak in a cosmic zoo and is the purpose; I’m not just an accident. However you answer the purpose question, religiously or philosophically, it’s important to have an answer, to be committed to things that are unchanging.

The second rung of the ladder is where you ask what I am meant do? Well, people have to answer that for themselves in all sorts of different ways. I often say my definition of calling is where your happiness intersects with the world's need. That’s my definition of calling. Your happiness intersects with the world's need.

Reflecting on what the Chancellor has said in regards to using your gifts for humanity, people often say “how would I work that out?” Well, I ask this question, What is it that if I don’t do it, I’m going to be poorer, and the world is going to be poorer? That is an important question around calling, what is it that if I don’t do it, I am going to be poorer, and the world is going to be poorer, and if I do it, I am going to be richer, and the world is going to be richer.

People ask how know what that is? What they are really asking is what is it you are passionate about?What gets you going? Maybe you lose all track of time when you’re doing it. It might be your art, your music, volunteering, your caring. It might be a whole range of things.

What do you lose track of time when you’re doing?

I’m not referring, by the way, to Facebook here. I applied to my three adult children to be each of their friends on Facebook, all three rejected me. I’m still coming to terms with that.

What is it I am passionate about? Climbing the vocational ladder sometimes works with the career ladder. It’s lovely when they align beautifully. Fancy being paid for the very thing you’re called to do. That’s the sweet spot. But let me say that, for most of us, life doesn’t work out that neatly.

Often there are tough choices to make. Maybe I can climb, take that extra career step, but the extra time pulls me away from things I need to do. It might be phases of my life, being a parent it might be callings that I know I might have to make tough decisions to be true to that calling.

Well to have that perspective is saying there is something unchanging something that’s solid. Something about how I use this degree, which hopefully will be my career ladder, but may become something deeper. The purpose for why I’m here, the calling I have, my bliss intersecting with the world’s needs.

To all of you, congratulations in whatever the future holds, and in that in the changing world, search for that which is unchanging.

Thank you.