Vew from the chair: Speeches of Richard WL Austin

education you have acquired for your own purposes, but to use them to create and re-create Australia. And so I say to you, young men and women, congratulations on your achievements. Go out into the world proud to be Australians, with your testamurs in your hands, and in your hearts and minds those words which Tennyson wrote of Ulysses and his gallant companions: 'To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield'. 7 Proud to Be an Australian. Address to Brisbane Legacy, 3 I August 1991 Let me say at once that I regard it as an honour to have been invited to address you today at the launching of this year's Legacy Appeal Week. Your Vice-President asked if I would be prepared to call my address 'Proud to Be an Australian' and I readily agreed. That was four months ago-Legacy certainly gets in early-and since then, while I have been thinking about what to say, I have become more and more aware-- as I expect many of you have, too-that Australia is in an appalling mess. We are faced with an economy where one Australian in nine is out of work; where so many of our young have been condemned to dole queues for so long that they are probably permanently unemployable; where there is a huge foreign debt; where large sections of the manufacturing industry have been dismantled; and where crime seems to be uncontrollable. There were moments when I felt I would have to put a question mark after the title of my address. That I have not done so may seem to be a victory of heart over head. I decided, however, that even if one is not particularly proud of the way in which Australia is being governed today, it is still possible to be proud to be Australian. So I shall speak without the question mark ... In 190 I, at the turn of the century, a woman who called herself Miles Franklin wrote a novel entitled My Brilliant Career, perhaps best known today from the film that was based upon it. She began her novel with these strong and moving words: I am proud that I am an Australian-a daughter of the Southern Cross, a child of the mighty bush. I am grateful I am a part of the bone and muscle of my nation, and earn my bread by the sweat of my brow, as man was meant to do. Ah, my sunburnt brothers, sons of toil and of Australia! I love and respect you well for you are brave and good and true ... I have seen you struggle uncomplainingly against flood, fire, disease in stock. dust and drought, trade depression and sickness, and yet have time to extend your hands and hearts in true sympathy to a brother in misfortune. In 1991, exactly ninety years later, one of our most distinguished journalists, Peter Robinson, wrote in his column in the Sydney Sun Herald: 155