Occasional Address — University of New South Wales graduation

Emeritus Professor Rosalind Croucher AM 

Chancellor, David Gonski AC, Dean, Professor George Williams AO, distinguished guests, graduating students and families. Graduations are such a special moment— not just in a university calendar, but also in your lives. It is significant that this occurs on the winter solstice: the day when the sun stands still. In its Latin, ‘solstitium’, became ‘solstice’ in Middle English: the day the sun stands still.  It has stood still for all of you tonight. 

May I begin my address by paying my respects to the elders, past, present and emerging, of the Gadigal People of the Eora Nation, the traditional custodians of the land on which this fine University sits, and I particularly acknowledge any Indigenous graduates and guests attending today. 

Graduations are about special people, memories of places, and about acknowledging the importance of lessons learned.  

As this is a very special occasion for me, I would also like to acknowledge some very special people who are sharing this day with me. In addition to so many dear colleagues on the staff of UNSW, I would like to single out:  

My family: my very dear husband, Professor John Croucher AM, of Macquarie University; my gorgeous grandchildren couldn’t join us, they wished to, but I promised I would acknowledge two of them—Alessandro and Cara Montuori—may they one day sit in the place where you are tonight; my parents would have liked to be here—Dr Frank McGrath and Dr Amy McGrath—but they are 96, live in the Blue Mountains and although my father still drives, it was a little too far to come. 

My colleagues, past and present also join me: from Mq days, from the very beginning, Emeritus Professor Bruce Kercher—we’ve done a lot together over those years; Associate Professor Nicole Graham, now at the University of Sydney; my fabulous co-author, Professor Prue Vines (UNSW); and from the Australian Human Rights Commission, the Chief Executive, Padma Raman PSM; and of course the inaugural Dean of the Law Faculty, Hal Wootten—from the days when I was on staff here, the portrait of Hal Wootten was one of those wonderful images that I remember.  

I also have many special memories of this room. I want to share just three.  

I used to play in a music group called the Renaissance Players, which was based at the University of Sydney, but we did many concerts here, particularly the Christmas Concert. My last Christmas Concert with that group was here in 1980, when I was heavily pregnant with my daughter, Emily (who I didn’t know at the time would be ‘Emily’). One of the pieces we did in that concert was ‘The Twelve Days of Christmas’, but the lyrics were rewritten to cover Australian animals. So we had a kookaburra laughing, for example, but I was, in my heavily pregnant state, the epitome of the ‘six wombats waddling’.  

I also remember my PhD graduation in this room— it was the only PhD on that day, unlike the ‘flock of Docs’ that we have tonight, and it was also the very last graduation ceremony presided over by the then Chancellor, the Hon Gordon Samuels AC, CVO, QC. I still remember those photos—if I smiled any harder, I am sure my face would have split. 

The third memory here is a rather quirky one. I did a staff seminar in this room, but I did it as an oboe recital, accompanied by another staff member, Ian Cameron, who was a wonderful pianist on the University Steinway. I remember that particular day because Julius Stone, who spent his last years as an academic as a visitor with the Faculty, gave me a standing ovation. That was one memory that I will treasure. 

And, of course, today I add another special memory of this place. 

I have special memories of UNSW Law School—in addition to Hal’s fabulous portrait. 

I was on staff from 1984 to 1990. I had come from Macquarie University, where I left Bruce Kercher behind and our colleagues somewhat under siege in those coming years. I spent there two very formative years as a Tutor, which is now an Associate Lecturer, or Lecturer A. When I was here, at UNSW, we shared telephones—two staff to each telephone, a bit like a party-line that you might see in some old movies. I taught Property and Equity with Margaret Stone and Chris Rossiter, two names that I am sure many of you would know from your studies of property law. I also taught Succession, which is a subject I fell in love with. 

Michael Coper, who has recently retired as the Dean of ANU Law School, had the room up the hall, in the library tower where the Faculty was at the time. Fittingly for a constitutional law academic, his room was 1111, to which he added ‘75’, which is a singular day in the history of constitutional law episodes in Australia, because that was the day on which Sir John Kerr, as Governor-General, exercised certain reserved powers. 

Meanwhile, I beavered away on my PhD, under the supervision of Adrian Brooks and Professor David Walker, who was then in the History school. It took me, I have to confess, ten years; but it took Michael Coper 12! 

The Vice Chancellor was Michael (‘Blowfly’) Birt (the scientific language of the metamorphosis of a maggot into a blowfly — that was the research that gave him the nickname Blowfly Birt). 

Our PCs were pretty primitive: we actually had ‘floppy disks’, about 12 cm square, using DOS, as the operating system was known. 

I remember the wonderful students, like Gabby Upton, parliamentarian and for some time NSW Attorney General; Nuncio D’Angelo, now Dr Nuncio D’Angelo, and a leading practitioner; and Prue Vines, whose career has soared in the meantime. 

 The message part of my speech tonight as about the value of education, so there are no surprises there.  

Each of you here today, and all your families, recognises the value of education.  Some of you, or your parents, may be, or have been, the first in your family to go to university—like my husband, and indeed like my father, who came here as a small boy on a ship in the 1920s and later became the Chief Judge of the Compensation Court of NSW, and then in retirement did his PhD, because his wife and his eldest daughter had one and he didn’t have any title anymore and he thought and he thought he should have one, so he did his doctorate then.  

On the university crest, at the top, is an image of an open book, on which is written ‘Scientia’, or if you were singing it, ‘she-en-tsi-a’, in ecclesiastical Latin. It means ‘knowledge’. In 1597, Sir Francis Bacon wrote in his ‘Sacred Meditations’ that ‘knowledge itself is power’.  

In an audience containing many law graduates, it is noteworthy that Sir Francis Bacon served both as Attorney-General and as Lord Chancellor of England. He was also the first to be given the title of ‘Queen’s Counsel’, by Queen Elizabeth I, when he became her legal adviser, which exists still as either ‘Queen’s Counsel’ or ‘Senior Counsel’, depending on your jurisdiction. Sir Francis was one of a great inquiring mind: the father of empiricism and scientific method. He truly understood that knowledge is indeed power.  

 Your university training is much more than a reading list, assignments and examinations. It has been a journey of the intellect: extending your intellectual abilities to think, to reason, to evaluate — to stand back from information and to question; to turn ‘information’ into ‘knowledge’.  Now you must use your knowledge and training wisely.   

The message I would like to leave you with is about respect and tolerance. Respect is the essence of a civil society and tolerance is the foundation stone of justice. The active expression of both is the defence of freedom of speech. 

The power of your knowledge must be exercised responsibly: to speak out against things you perceive as unfair or unjust; and, at the same time to defend the right of others to do so as well.  For in a just society, tolerance is that which preserves it. Your legal training should serve you well here.  

One of my colleagues and mentors, Margaret Stone, who is now the Inspector General of Intelligence and Security, after a very distinguished career in a range of roles, gave the following advice to her own graduating class: 

“As educated members of the community you have a special obligation to contribute to debate.  Do so with passion, and with humour if you can, and if you can’t — settle for earnestness.  This may be difficult in Australia where earnestness is regarded as faintly embarrassing … But there is a place for earnestness — and embarrassment wears off in time.” 

To this advice, I would add the following: do not settle for the flippant, off-handed easy chuckle of agreement with the opinion of the day, and worst of all to join in the contemptuous put-down. Do not accept the stereotype.  Stereotypes are an expression of ignorance: an easy defensive isolation of the ‘other’, as is condemning those who disagree with you as ‘haters’. Such un-intellectual practices reflect a failure of debate; and through participation in informed, respectful, debate you can make a difference.  

 Your graduation today gives you a responsibility to make a difference.  Your knowledge as Bacon said is power: ‘scientia potentia est’, as he said. Use your knowledge powerfully—and wisely.  

Thank you again, Chancellor, for honouring me today.