The Russell Taylor Oration 2024

JUDE BARLOW

Firstly, I'd like to extend a sincere apology for today's Oration from AIATSIS Chief Executive Officer, Len Hill, due to his being unwell. But he is watching online. Hey, Len.

As Deputy CEO, I am honoured to speak on Len and the Institute's behalf today. And I would like to commence today's proceedings because I'm operating two roles here. Deputy CEO and also providing you a Welcome to Country.

And I would like to do that now and welcome you to the land of my ancestors in the language of my ancestors, which is a language that was once thought dead. But under the auspices of AIATSIS, we Ngunnawal people have awoken it, and we are living it currently.

JUDE SPEAKS IN LANGUAGE

And what I've just said to you today is today we're all gathering together on Ngunnawal Country. And this Country is my ancestors' spiritual homeland. And we, all of us in this room today, are keeping the pathways of my ancestors alive by walking together as one.

And in the wise words of a very, very loved and very much missed auntie, senior, elder, auntie Agnes Shea, you may now leave your footprints here. Welcome to Ngunnawal Country.

I would like to acknowledge all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people here today and those joining online. And of course, all of our supporters and allies in the non-indigenous community.

I would also especially like to acknowledge distinguished guests, Russ's family, in particular Mrs. Judy Taylor and Rebecca Wheeler, Russ's daughter, as well as any other family members joining us online.

And here in person today, Ms. Catherine Jones, PSM Secretary of Attorney General's Department, Ms. Julie-Ann Guivarra, DCEO National Indigenous Australians Agency, Ms. Karen Doran, PSM, CEO, National Capital Authority, Ms. Jacqui Uhlmann, Deputy CEO of the National Film and Sound Archive, Mr. Matt Anderson, PSM Director of the Australian War Memorial, Dr. Gordon de Brouwer, PSM Commissioner of the Australian Public Service Commission, HEMS Victoria Treadall, British High Commissioner to Australia, Ernesto Cespedes Oropeza, excuse my pronunciation, Ambassador of Mexico and Australia, Mr. Alan Escobedo, Ambassador of Guatemala to Australia, Mr. Santiago Cortes Alcocer, Head of Political and Cultural Affairs for Embassy of Mexico and Australia, and Ms. Floriselda Pena, Charged Affairs of Panama, and Clemens Stolzenberg, First Secretary Embassy of the Federal Republic of Germany.

Now today's Oration is being recorded and will be available on the AIATSIS website in the coming days.

Now AIATSIS saw the Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies reflect the resilience of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples and this year, it's one year younger than me, we celebrate our 60th anniversary and reflect on the evolution of AIATSIS since its establishment in 1964.

Now from a small research and archival institution, AIATSIS has evolved into an organisation that tells the story of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australia, creates opportunities for people to encounter, engage with and be transformed by that story, supports and facilitates Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cultural resurgence and shapes our national narrative.

Gosh, we've come a long way in 60 years.

And today we are also here to celebrate the life and service of the late Russell Taylor AM, a proud Gamilaroi man with family connection to La Perouse in Sydney and to the New England area.

Russell served as AIATSIS' principal from 2009 to 2015 and then as its first Chief Executive Officer from 2015 to 2016 and I must say how proud I am that I personally served under Russell and how much I admired him personally for his strength and guidance and care of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander staff serving with him.

Russ was awarded the Member of the Order of Australia in 2015 for significant service to the community as a cultural leader and public sector executive in the field of Indigenous Affairs.

And during his long career, Russ also worked in senior positions with the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission and the Aboriginal Development Commission.

Russ had an unwavering commitment to the wellbeing of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples and left an enduring legacy of public service.

In 2009, he called for the preservation of over 100,000 hours of audio visual recordings of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples held by AIATSIS, saying that by 2025 no amount of money would preserve the remaining magnetic material that was yet to be digitised.

Russ said, "Every picture, every story, every song enriches us." And I'm really, really pleased and proud to stand here today and tell you all that no picture, no story, nor song that Russ was referring to has been lost to future generations.

The Russell Taylor Oration was established in 2017 to recognise and honour the achievements and contributions of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander individuals in the public service. And this includes today's very special speaker.

So, I'll introduce you to Letitia Hope, Deputy Secretary at the Department of Social Services. Letitia is a proud Bundjalung, Torres Strait Islander and South Sea Islander woman who over a 30-year public service career, who would guess that she's been in the public service for 30 years, looking as good as she does.

Leticia has worked across the Commonwealth and State Governments in areas of social policy, development, program management and service delivery, housing, primary and allied health, aged care and community service, that is big.

Prior to her current role with the Department of Social Services, Letitia was the Deputy Chief Executive Officer of Policy and Programs at the National Indigenous Australian Agency.

Letitia is a Council member of the APS Deputy Secretary Talent Council and an inaugural member of the Australian Public Service Academy Faculty and a board member and Council member of IPAA ACT, the Institute of Public Administration Australia.

And we are, at AIATSIS, also very proud to say that Teish has close association with us, having been the former Deputy CEO of the Institute. And I think too, Teish, you started your public service career as a trainee here at AIATSIS. That's right. I got it right.

So I'd love you all to join me in welcoming Letitia Hope to give the Russell Taylor Oration. Thank you.

LETITIA HOPE

In the words of my ancestors, Jingiwallah, hello and warm greetings to you all. Yuma Aunt.

Thank you so much for your warm welcome and your heartfelt welcome always. And can I too acknowledge and thank the Ngunnawal custodians and all surrounding families for your welcome to us and to my family who have lived, worked and played here for over 30 years.

Can I also acknowledge wherever you are, you're on first nations lands or waters. And I pay my respects to all of our elders for their continuing custodianship of our country, our knowledge and our culture.

And of course, extend that respect to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people here today or online. And of course to you all.

I'd like to acknowledge the AIATSIS Council, those who have previously served and of course those who serve now.

And I'd like to congratulate Clinton Bracknell for your appointment to the new Council Chair. And of course, Mishelle Deshong to the appointment as the deputy chair of the council.

I'd also like to send an absolute heartfelt congratulations to Leonard Hill who was recently appointed as the CEO.

Thank you for your gentle and very persuasive invitation for me to make some remarks here today. AIATSIS is in really good hands.

And to the AIATSIS staff, I know you will have worked really hard to stand this event up. And I want to thank you for your very unique, diligent and skillful work that you do.

You indeed care for our stories, our culture, our ancestors for now and for our future descendants. And I thank you and appreciate that work.

Of course, can I acknowledge all dignitaries, special guests, secretaries, the Commissioner, any of my fellow public servants, colleagues and leaders.

Of course, a quick shout out to my family who are mostly online today but represented by my husband Matt Hope, my youngest daughter Alyssa Hope and my dad, Uncle Col Watego, forever my bedrock and support.

And of course, I would like to acknowledge a special acknowledgement to the family and the loved ones of whose this oration takes its name. Judy, your whole family, I know you're online today and I acknowledge you.

I find it really difficult to put into words the humble privilege that I feel to be asked to give the 2024 Russ Taylor Oration. Especially as it coincides with this landmark celebration of the 60th anniversary of this incredible institution, AIATSIS.

At 60 years of collecting and caring for our stories, revitalising our language, our customs, our dreaming, our songlines, our dance, our paint, our weaving, caring for our ancestors, our country and most importantly, holding up a mirror to our nation on the story it tells itself, about itself.

From the miry travesty of our shared histories of dispossession, oppression and assimilation to our collective antiquities of our brazen, gracious and formidable strength and unrelenting resilience and beauty of our culture, the oldest continuing living culture in the world.

AIATSIS, your leadership, your courage, your professionalism, your custodianship enriches our nation more than people can realise or appreciate. And I believe that it's that vision and that mission and that ideal of professionalism and custodial contribution was something that Russ himself deeply believed in.

For those who didn't have the honour of knowing Russ, after decades of service and a distinguished career in public sector leadership, upon his retirement from the CEO of AIATSIS in 2016, he, in his forever forward leaning and inspiring way, cemented this oration into the AIATSIS yearly calendar.

A moment in the annual cycle to come together and celebrate the wisdom and the fortitude of our Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander public sector leaders of yesteryear, hear the contemporary perspectives, challenges and opportunities of our Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander leaders of today, and most importantly to Russ and it should be to us all, is to provide a platform to inspire new generations of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people to pursue a career in the public service for our nation's future.

You see, the art and the craft of public service professionalism is something that Russ and I both deeply shared a belief in. A noble contribution for our people to make across all areas of government business and policy with and for our people. But equally, an active contribution to public service as First Nations Australians is critically important to build a better nation for our mob, but for all of Australia.

And I believe his foresight and vision of this oration is a true custodial gift from Russ to us all.

Now I choose that word custodial quite deliberately as it is absolutely the central theme of my public sector career over 30 years and also of some of my remarks today.

As many of you know or now know, AIATSIS is the birthplace of my formal public sector career. But it's not the genesis of my unshamed passion for the public service.

And in the spirit of Russ's well-known provocation, perhaps not originally his but well-known anyway, “People cannot be what they cannot see.” And so today I want to tell you a little bit about my story and invite you to see my story.

So I come from a very long line of men and women who have served this nation, five generations to be exact, of men and women who have served in either the military, defending or dying for this nation, or who have dedicated their lives to building this nation's social service fabric, horizontal equity and dignity for all.

Case in point, my Mother, Nola, is still working for the New South Wales government running a community centre at the age of 70 something. Sorry, Mum. Which is why she couldn't join us here today.

But with a service legacy like that, which I'm deeply, deeply proud of, it would be fair and true to some extent to say, well, I'm just carrying on with the family business. And while that is a big part of what drives me, but it's not the entirety of what drives my passion for the public service.

Because my deeply centred enthusiasm for the impact and the value of the life of a public service or of a public servant was revealed to me at 17 years old when I was a girl and I encountered a true custodian of public value.

I don't remember her name. I really wish I did. But she was probably an APS3, APS4 Aboriginal Liaison Officer working in the Centrelink office in Liverpool. And I will never forget the impact that she has had on my life and the impact of one interaction in a Centrelink office in the 90s.

I was a new mum catching a bus into Liverpool because I wasn't old enough to drive and I had a three month old baby on one hip and a really heavy pram in the other hand.

And I was heading off to the Centrelink office trying to work out how to be a first time mother as a teenager while awkwardly navigating a very grown up social safety netted system.

And as I entered that dingy office, and I'm sorry, David, but with all due respect, the offices back then were pretty dingy and uninviting. I stood there awkwardly pondering what would my future hold? Barely out of school, a baby with a baby.

And she spotted me and she came over to me. And she said to me, "Can I help you?" And I honestly said to her, "Well, I don't really know what I'm doing. I've never had to deal with government before. I don't even have a licence, like I'm still on my mum's Medicare card. And I have no idea what I do."

And she said to me, "Right, okay then. Well, let's let me see if I can help." And she sat down with me and we started to have a yarn and sure, she helped me do the administrative stuff, right? The transactional stuff.

And when she was done, she leaned into me and she said in a very gentle and quiet but assuring voice, "You know, your current circumstances don't need to define your future. Where you are right here, now, it's not where you have to be if you want to make a different choice."

And in that moment, I felt such dignity, such care, such hope and aspiration. A seed planted that with time and support and seasons and toil and nurture could and did grow. She didn't see me for my past choices. She didn't even see me for my today. What she saw was my potential. What she saw was my tomorrow.

And so she helped me find a way back into the education system as a teenage mum, which led me to working in childcare and studying, which led me to sitting the old public service aptitude test in a very large gymnasium hall in Belconnen, which led me to being offered a trainee APS-1 position here at the Institute, which started my pathway to become a deputy secretary of social services, a custodian of the very organisation which is charged now with designing and delivering the very policies that that auntie on that day was a custodian of.

Her courage, her care, her custodial instinct to lean in beyond the immediate task in front of her. I mean, it would have been well within her bounds just to do the transaction and do the administration.

Her approach on that day represented to me 65,000 years of ancient ingrained knowledge of knowing, doing and being. Custodianship, coupled with the modern practice of creating public value through administration, manifesting for me personally in one public service transaction, an interaction that transformed my life and the life of my children's children.

And to me, that is the real present power of public servants. That is the real work that we do in public administration.

And yes, there are lots of challenges, lots of frustration, lots of paperwork, some administrative whiplash, lots of challenging politics and even some personal hurts when working in the bureaucracy.

But I believe the value, the ability to lean in, to turn a transaction into an interaction, administration into opportunity, seeing people rather than paperwork, approaching every task, all our work at every level with dignity and care and diligence and integrity and professionalism. To me, that is at the heart of the art and the craft of being a good public servant.

Every day in the work we do in our respective roles and areas of responsibility or influence, we have the mantle. It's only for a very fleeting time. And if we treat that custodianship with care and improve the lives of individual people like teenage mums in the Liverpool office, then we will have lived up to the ideals that the public service is built on and the ideals that I believe that Russ deeply believed.

This notion of custodianship is why I believe and why I believe Russ believed that First Nations Australians make such great public servants. Its ancient knowledge fused with modern practice. It isn't just what we do. It is innately in so many ways who we are. A true, our true traditional inheritance, this custodianship.

The Australian Public Service, the APS as I'll refer to it, has itself, recently infused this very concept into its fabric, stitching it in through both law, L-A-W and lore, L-O-R-E. Albiet using a different name, the term stewardship instead of the term custodian or custodianship, but essentially the underpinnings are exactly the same.

So we in the APS are custodians of truly a great many things. Our departments, our agencies, the policy advice, frameworks, the programmatic settings, the regulatory environments that we steward, the capabilities, the infrastructure, the systems that we build and we rebuild to suit society as it changes. The benefits, the entitlements, the services we deliver, the relationships and the networks that we forge across international, national and jurisdictional borders, across industry, business, academia, research, other private sector, philanthropy, lobbyists, the cultural sector and of course across communities and citizens themselves. And of course we are custodians of the business of the elected governments in which we serve.

But for us to be able to look after any of that and have any chance of working through the complexities of all of those parties who have an interest in what we do, we must look after our most valuable asset, our people and develop them to be leaders today and develop them to be the leaders of tomorrow.

With every role that we steward we need to be looking at who came before us or can we learn from them? Who's with us now? How do we harness that collective potential? And looking towards who comes after us? How do we attract them? How do we invite them in? What are we leaving to them to take forward?

And as leaders holding ourselves accountable to being good custodians of the work and the workplaces we steward but perhaps more importantly making sure we've prepared the next generation of public servants to be good custodians as well. Actively looking for these APS-1 trainees, the APS-3 or 4 frontline service officers, building the future CEOs and the secretaries that deposit these great custodial gifts for the betterment of our entire nation.

Building pipelines of people who can skillfully navigate the complexities of the work that we do across government and respectfully steward the relationships we build and we need to continue to build across government, industry, the sector, peaks and especially with community.

As leaders I ask you to consider, do you care enough to hear that quiet dissenting voice through the popular noise? Do you stop and pay mindful attention to all parts of the system with a sense of curiosity that rises above any group momentum or any momentum of the contemporary current, political or otherwise?

Do you call out the system and its actors within it, especially yourself, when there is disconnection or misalignment in the actions and they don't line up with the intention?

And do you test, retest and contest the set conventions, fighting back the sense of complacency that contentment of completion brings to us all?

And even most importantly when we have just worked so hard to build it, to finish it, to table it, that strategy, that framework, that policy. That's the moment when we need to test, recontest and contest what we're doing.

And I don't pose these questions without being aware that that takes enormous courage. Courage to challenge what's come before us so we are doing the right things today with an eye to tomorrow.

The policy settings, the trains of actions, that they may have been the best decision at the time and they may no longer be now and that's okay. We don't make decisions in a vacuum. There is always a context and that context can and does change.

And so we're not throwing our former colleagues under the bus when we turn around and say, I don't think we've quite got this right. I don't think it's quite working in these new circumstances. We might need to rethink it.

Times change and we must change with them and good custodians understand that there are seasons in everything we do and they have the courage to change with those seasons. A willingness to adapt, I believe, is the key to ensuring that the APS remains effective and relevant and continues to deliver public value as work ebbs and flows and is passed on from one hand to the other.

In my earlier remarks, I commended AIATSIS for its courage to hold the mirror up to our nation on the story it tells itself about itself. And during his inaugural oration in 2017, Russ laid out a series of provocations in relation to enhancing that very value in the APS.

And so I thought it might be prudent if we just held the mirror up to ourselves a little bit and just see how we fare.

So in 2017, Russ called to and encouraged Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people to pursue a career in the public sector, to drive change from within, increase value and the ongoing diversification of the service.

His provocation to the secretaries at the time was to ensure that the APS adopted more innovative practice and culturally appropriate processes for recruitment and that the service secured greater numbers of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people across all levels.

Russ not only called for greater numbers, but he specifically honed in on the numbers and greater visibility of First Nation leadership in the executive ranks of the APS. You can't be what you can't see.

And so he called for more supportive approaches to support Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people who were already working in the service, increasing the visibility and access of role models and mentors.

And he also postured that the system itself needed to mature its public value by increasing its complete cultural competency throughout the system.

Turning his attention outward, Russ further challenged the APS writ large to establish real relationships, to properly engage with First Nations Australians at the local, regional and national level. Relationships based on trust and mutual respect.

And of course Russ surmised that a more effective engagement with First Nations communities would also assist in identifying potential recruitments to the public service, a mutual benefit to be sure.

So how do we fare?

In June 2017, the total recruitment numbers of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people in the APS was at 5,354 across the system. Trainees, graduates, staff, executive and senior levels.

And at June 2024, seven years later, the number has increased by 18.7% to 6,357 and somebody will do my maths, I'm sure, and correct that if that's not correct, but it's about right.

The executive level one and two positions and for those outside the public service, that's the middle management layer, have shown really good growth. Increasing by 81% at the EL1 level to 674, staff and the EL2 level increasing at 92% to 240.

And of course, there have been significant increases in the same period at the senior executive level. SES band ones have almost tripled from 25 to 70. SES band twos have more than doubled from five to 11 and SES band threes fourfold from one to four.

And of course, we have Jodie Broun, a Yinjibarndi woman who was appointed as the first First Nations CEO to head up the National Indigenous Australians Agency. And I should state I do believe these numbers are actually higher in October.

Some of them admittedly coming from a low base, but the direction is promising and we should be proud that more First Nations people are choosing to join our ranks in the public sector and that we are providing a work environment to hang on to them.

Along with the efforts of some long term true believers such as Jodie who presented and poked us all at last year's Oration, I would largely attribute much of this improvement to a range of initiatives, including the Closing the Gap Agreement Priority Reform 3, which actually holds all government's account to transforming itself, transforming government organisations.

The APS Reform Agenda, which is a deliberative body of effort that aims to strengthen the Australian public service through a series of priorities such as increased integrity, people centred approaches, being a model employer and increased capability.

I would also attribute some of this movement to the active commitment and leadership of the heads of the APS, secretaries, deputy secretaries and alike, who are incrementally but mindfully shifting the power in the system.

And through these approaches, we have seen a maturing in many areas. We now do have more innovative culturally appropriate processes for recruiting and that has seen benefits. Notably, the APS 100 has seen greater recruitment and retention and mentoring of senior executive levels.

It is now becoming easier in the public service to see what you can be.

Recruitment and retention is also complemented by greater access to role models and mentorship, such as the Bulabul Talent Development Program, which is investing in leadership to support holistic development, pathways to leadership in culturally safe ways.

The APS has also made serious attempts at raising its cultural competency. Recently trialling the Collaboration Circle, which builds and connects our chief operating officers, our heads of corporate, with First Nations staff in the system in real time to better understand what drives retention, how can we build better support structures and systems within the public service.

There has also been greater efforts to see and hear from Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people across the entire system in both symbolic and practical ways.

Some symbolic ways include the incorporation of traditional practices like paying respects, receiving and giving welcomes and acknowledgments of country, now an appropriate standard, a custom, embedded in the APS.

Ensuring that the three national flags are flown and seen clearly. The Australian flag, the Aboriginal flag and the Torres Strait Islander flag. These of course are our international symbols that represent the national collective of shared identity and values.

The gifting and using of First Nation language. This encapsulates our dreaming, it gives expression and meaning, an actual intent of public sector buildings and conference rooms, gathering places, national strategies and policy settings and programs.

And these symbolic actions speak to recognition, inclusion and showing respect and celebrating the true traditional Australian culture, the oldest living culture in the world.

And at a practical level, the APS is also rising to the challenge through a broad range of initiatives and I'll just give you a few examples.

We have embedded the active participation of the head of the National Indigenous Australians Agency at the highest senior leadership tables. Tables such as the Secretary Boards and Secretary Subcommittees and other key governance and decision-making structures across the system for policy and for the stewardship of the system.

Non-Indigenous senior leaders have taken much more custodial responsibility for actively driving greater cultural competency and creating better workplaces in the public service for First Nations Australians and that includes a range of things like the Indigenous Champions Network.

We are delivering centralised and core curriculum to improve the system-wide cultural competency, relationship brokering, shared decision making and community capacity building to be at the heart of all capability in the public service through, you know, informed platforms like the APS Academy.

And on top of our people efforts, the APS is also making inroads into maturing coordination approaches of our policy and the coordination. So changes in budgetary architecture, First Nations business is now at the centre of government business, building and maturing our ability to do shared decision making through funding decisions and resource allocations, driving greater whole-of-system approaches across the sector, across policy frameworks. Including closing the gap, but not just limited to closing the gap.

For example, in my own department, the Department of Social Services, is doing really terrific work. It's so, albeit imperfect, but it's really encouraging. Working really hard on cross-cutting systems and wide approaches that look at whole people, whole community and whole systems. We are working really hard to bring together parts of the system to work in partnership, empower communities and co-labour with us on really important national strategies.

Things like ending gender-based violence in the First Nations National Safety Home. Safe and supported, which is a framework to protect our children. The co-design of the early year strategy, which is to ensure that all children, our next generation, have the opportunity to thrive. Partnering on the National Homelessness Strategy, or the National Disability Strategy. Working with us, and to be honest, leading us on how to tackle entrenched disadvantage, just to name a few.

Beyond these really important social service fronts, policy makers and thought leaders are also turning their mind and actively working with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people and communities on pursuing comprehensive macroeconomic policy. Co-designing strategies and actions that rightfully place Indigenous prosperity and economic empowerment at the centre of government business. Balancing care of culturally appropriate social service safety nets with the dignity of economic self-determination.

And there are handful examples and there are more and they are good and they move us in the right direction. And we should celebrate them. And we should give life and expression to them.

But I don't believe we should be too haughty on our own reflection just yet. As custodians of public value, we know our work is never done. And the stark reality is that the gap for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people remains a gap. In fact, in far too many ways, it is a gaping chasm.

We have not yet seen the full potential or realised the full social and economic empowerment of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people in their communities in this nation yet.

To be honest, some of our approaches of our yesteryears have not delivered the success we envisaged. And the disappointments in those unintended consequences and outcomes must be respected and critically examined and evaluated. I mean, how many times for all the public servants in the room has the ANAO pulled us up for not properly building in reflection and evaluation of our programs?

We do need to continue to do the hard work to make sense of our today. We need to ensure that we don't rest on our laurels and become complacent in our success regardless of how radical or incremental we feel it might be. We cannot take yesterday's approaches for granted. We need to continue to plant seeds.

We must also continue to grow and adapt and cater for the untapped potential of our tomorrow and the unseen future. We need to ensure that we don't slap words like shared decision making, co-design and true partnership onto programs or approaches when it's just not so. They're not nice gratuities or buzzwords. They require time and toil and heavy lifting for today and for tomorrow's future.

Symbolism must be turned into systemic practice. We must move the rhetoric into reality. We must continue to learn from our past and steward our today with care and dignity and diligence to build a better tomorrow.

In the words of the former AIATSIS Council Chair, Professor Michael McDaniel, who gifted these to me in 2017, "Yindyamara, I wish you great respect and I wish you gentle and safe footprints forward." Thank you.

JUDE BARLOW

Thanks, Teish. As always, wonderful, wonderful words. You've really given us a lot to think about. And I'm pretty sure that people will have some questions for you. So I'll come over there and take a seat beside you and we'll start the Q and A part.

It was really amazing. Can I just say, Thank you for telling your story. It was really, really wonderful. And I think one of the stories that I really liked out of your speech was the story of the person who first inspired you or changed your life when you were 17 years old with a baby. It was a really lovely story.

So what would you say to young or even older people first entering the APS? What advice would you give them?

LETITIA HOPE

It's a great question. Thanks, Aunt. You did prepare me for that too.

I mean, I think the first thing I would say is that the APS is a system. It has its own tribes and its own language and customs and totems and chiefs. And it can be really challenging to navigate that.

It is really important that when you take on a role as a public servant that you do understand that you are a custodian of part of this bigger system. And to do that, I think understanding, learning, being curious about understanding how do all these tribes and nations come together? How does all these institutional customs actually hang together?

I think you need to be really clear on who your identity is and what you bring to the public sector knowing that you are entering a system to be a custodian of that system.

I think it's really important to find mentors and role models. And I have had many in my lifetime, many in my lifetime, incredibly generous, very, very seasoned public servants who have invested in me.

I also think it's really important that you invest in others early. There's this reciprocity that happens with that. And you do have to understand the role that you're playing in the public sector. I've had conversations with incredible people that have such amazing passion for various policy agendas as advocates. And yes, we advocate in the public service, but it's not the place for us to advocate openly like that. It is a professional place for us to be apolitical.

And you've got to understand you're there to deliver the government of the day. It doesn't mean you can't push the system from within, but if you want to be a great advocate, go and work out in an advocacy agency because we need great advocates outside the system holding that mirror up to ourselves.

JUDE BARLOW

You know, fantastic. Thank you. I might just throw to the floor now if anybody's got a question or anybody online. And may I have a question for Teish? Anything online?

Nothing. You must have answered everybody's question.

LETITIA HOPE

I'm not sure that's true.

JUDE BARLOW

Well, it was really brilliant. So you must have.

Oh, there is a question just over here.

JACQUI UHLMANN

Do you have any advice on pathways into employment in the public service and how we're doing and where the opportunities are to bring people in at all levels. First Nations people who might not have sort of grown up in the public service but are coming from lots of different places and different sectors.

LETITIA HOPE

Thanks for the question, Jacqui. It's a really great question. So I think in the main, I think public sector has come a very long way over the last 30 years. My journey about actually creating entrance points for people to be in the public sector. It is through graduate programs and training programs. And as I said in my remarks, thinking differently about recruitment approaches, thinking differently about how we put those customs and systems of recruitment practices in place in the public sector.

I think some of the decoding the language. I mean, as I said before, it is a tribe and you've got to learn the language, you've got to learn the customs. And that can be really difficult for people who have got exceptional talent coming from outside the system into the system. And we acknowledge that and we've done some work in relation to making sure that we demystify some of that stuff.

I also think that just on the First Nations recruitment stuff, I think one of the things that I find is a bit of a double-edged sword is that when Russ read me his remarks in 2017, he talked about the public sector being a really staple set of employment for public servants, for First Nations public servants.

To my public service colleagues, we're not the only game in town anymore. Actually, First Nations people have employment options across a range of places and industries and they are excelling in a range of industries. So if we want to continue to attract First Nations people to the public service, then we have to make sure that our employment value proposition is good.

And that's why things like the collaboration circle, where we've got First Nations staff talking with heads of corporate and talking with the APS scene about what are these structural impediments? What are these things that cause barriers or resentment or movement in and out of the system is so important in real time? Because we don't want to just reflect on that five years time in the next consensus or the next employment strategy. We want to be able to adapt to those things in real time.

CATHERINE JONES

Thanks, Leticia. It was a fantastic oration. You referenced briefly around the commitment that all governments have made under the Closing the Gap Agreement around Priority Reform 3, transforming how we as governments partner with and work with First Nations communities. And there's a lot of conversations in all organisations about what that really means. I just wanted to draw you out a little bit on any observations, either from your own space in DSS or more broadly what you see across government and any words of wisdom.

LETITIA HOPE

Thanks, Catherine. Great question. I think the intention is real. I think the intention of shared power and having community voices at the table, working with people, doing things with people instead of to people. I think the intention is real. The mechanics are really challenging in our democratic system. They are.

Public servants, my encouragement to public servants around engaging in these shared partnership tables and sharing power is a few things. One, you must be honest with the person you're at the partnership table with about where your bounds of authority is. Don't overpromise things that you cannot deliver. And if the government hasn't made a decision, then we have to hold the ground that there's no decision on this.

I think for First Nations people, particularly we've talked about in orations like this before, that massive trust deficit of governments saying things and doing something different. As custodians, we hold that responsibility to build trust. And trust comes through honest brokering and honest conversations and genuine discussion.

I also think that, you know, we also in the public sector need to do our homework and our research because there is strategies and policies of our yesteryear that for us might be new. But for community we're working with, it's not the first time they've heard that. It's not even the fifth time they've had a public servant come out and say, we want to do this or we want to do that. So we've actually got to do some heavy lifting on our learning from our yesteryear and go in with that sense of honest dignity in terms of those discussions.

It's also really hard work. It is really hard, long work. And we have to adapt our ability in the public sector to understand that the relationships matter. I mean, most people can hear a no if the no is said with respect and dignity. What people really don't like is hearing a yes when your intention is never to be a yes. I think we have to do some work around that in the system.

We're also doing a whole bunch of work in investing in the capability and the capacity of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities and just community partners in terms of building their capacity about how the system works. Quite often they don't understand budget processes or they don't understand cabinet processes or those kinds of things that really constrain public servants. And so I think the more we mature that partnership and learn and learn in good faith those lessons, the better we all become.

I think in the public sector and I say this with all due respect, we can tend to pick up catch words a bit like the sun-dried tomatoes of the 90s and just throw them on everything. We like a good buzzword in the public sector. We have to stop doing that. And that's what I mean by real intention, that misalignment of intention and action. Being really clear about your authorising environment, being really transparent about what it is you can broker on the table, understanding that the person in the room has probably got a whole coalition of constituents that they also need to garner a yes or a consensus view from and having that kind of forethought, into doing that.

But I think one of the things with things like shared decision making and, you know, honest partnerships, as I said, I think the worst thing we can do is be buzzwordy and label everything with that. Sometimes we are just consulting and that's okay. Sometimes we are giving information and that's okay too. Not everything needs to be a co-design or a partnership relationship. It's about the dignity of what you're doing and the respect of the other party hearing the information.

JUDE BARLOW

There's a question online

LETITIA HOPE

I'll let you read that because I can't see that.

Question from an online audience member:

First of all, thanks for the wonderful Oration. Could you say a little bit more about your experiences straddling the Indigenous and non-Indigenous worldviews? As this is often a negotiated space with lots of grey and fundamentally different ideas about what good looks like and how do you survive and thrive in this space?

LETITIA HOPE

That's a big one. Glad that's anonymous. Did Len write that?

This is such a good question.

Okay. So, for me, my authentic leadership in the public sector and my identity as a First Nations person absolutely coexist. They're not in conflict with each other at all. And so in some of my journey in the public sector, I have been told I'm too black, I'm not black enough, I'm too young, I'm not too old. Okay, I rarely get told I'm too old, but I am because I've got eight grandbabies now.

I've been told that I'm too forward or too reserved. And the point I'm making is that it comes back to that original place of advice you asked me to give people joining the public sector. You have to know your identity because everyone will have an opinion about who you are and the system will try and shape that opinion because it's a big institution. It's a system. It's a big institution.

And so working through understanding who you are and what you stand for and what your values are is a really important part of your professional journey. And understanding, for me, my value, not my whole intrinsic value, but part of my passion and purpose is about being a really good professional public servant. Because I genuinely believe that we can steward and make a difference and make a better nation through that craft.

Now, I'm not a politician and I don't have anything against politicians, but it's not my craft, nor am I an advocate because that's not my craft, but I respect advocates and politicians for their craft. So I think it's really important to know your identity and know who you are and what you stand for. And to do that, you need to have really close confidence in your circle that will test that for you.

You need to make sure, and for me, I go home to my family, I go home to my country, I go home to my traditional values and roots to test and refine that and retest that and encourage that and support that.

But if you're going to be in a public service, you need to understand your job is to create public value. Your job is to serve the elected government of the day. You can have influence. But that's, it's really a part of understanding who you are as a person and making sure you've got safe mentors around you to speak into that.

And I mean, safe mentors, not every conversation is for every water cooler. Sometimes you need close cabinet people and you can share those things with. I think it's about making sure that you continue to grow. Like we've always got something to learn and we've always got something to teach no matter what job we're in. And particularly as public servants, that's really important.

Does that answer your question? Does that answer the question?

JUDE BARLOW

Well, that answered it for me. But do we have another question from the floor?

SANTIAGO CORTES 

Thank you so much. Santiago Cortes from the Embassy of Mexico. And the question is, what initiatives and policies have been implemented and are still yet to be implemented for increasing representation and leadership of First Nations women in the public sector? And yeah, so what glass ceilings have been broken and which ones are still there?

LETITIA HOPE

Excuse me, I just can't hear you in this incredible room with this incredible acoustic. Did you say increasing women?

SANTIAGO CORTES

First Nations women. Yeah.

LETITIA HOPE

There's a whole range of things happening. In fact, there's a whole gender equity policy environment and policy set of policy settings that are being driven through the APS reform and through government more broadly. And I do think that it's important to have representation of all community, men, women, all nations in the public sector. As I said, people can't be what they can't see. And so having that visible diversity in the public sector is really important.

But also, we think differently. And having those different trains of thinking and different ways of solution brokering and different ways of looking at problems or looking at challenges and looking at solutions, for me personally, creates better public policy. It's those different windows. It's why the APS1s and the APS3s are so important at the table. Because in my role, I don't get to see those transactions anymore. They really matter to people like I was at 17 in terms of well-intended decision making that is consequently not necessarily being delivered in the way it was intended and how we do that. So that representative voice and having to look across all parts of the system, whether it's men or women, whether it's gender, whether it's race, whether it's level or life experience, I think is really important to have a really good, strong public sector.

JUDE BARLOW

Are there any more? You warmed them up. Now they're all putting their hand up.

JASON LYONS

Hi, Letitia. Thank you so much for that wonderful talk. My name is Jason Lyons. I'm from here at AIATSIS. I've been in the public service a similar amount of time to you. And I think we both agree that we've seen in that time some fundamental shifts in the way that the public service works with our communities. One question I did want to ask you, in 2024, if you had a magic wand, what would you change in the public service to be able to enable the public service, you know, the system to be able to work with our communities more effectively to achieve better outcomes?

LETITIA HOPE

Oh, Jason, we're going to have a coffee after this. That's a cracking question. What would I change?

I think there's a range of things that we are already changing. So if we think about the way we think of diversity of not having everybody come to the Canberra bubble to add a value to the Commonwealth public sector and having people out in community with community. And I'm not just talking about First Nations community. I'm talking about Australia, which is really important because we can we can become intrinsic in our own bubble within the public sector and forget to see the forest from the trees.

Sometimes we forget to see the 17-year-old in the Centrelink office because we're thinking about these big macro issues, big system leader issues. So I think post-COVID environment, I think that's changed. Now that's going to cause us a bunch of other challenges in the public sector that we're going to have to think about. How do we keep, you know, staff connected? What are we doing about property cost? All of those. And they're all reasonable things to think about. But I think that has been a really important change that was enabled by, you know, by COVID.

As I said, I think the fact that in my experience in the last few years, the dialogue around having First Nations business at the centre of all government, it's not just the thing that the department with lots of different names, including IA is dealing with, has been really important.

And I think one of the challenges I find in 2024, and it's a really interesting challenge, is we often talk about First Nations people in this country from the closing the gap perspective, and it is a fair perspective, but it's extraordinarily deficit. What we don't always do, it's one of the reasons I think this institute is so important, is talk about the strengths of First Nations people, the resilience of our culture, the strength of our knowing, doing and being, the custodial gifts that we bring to the table from an ancient perspective around land management, fire management, around building chains of people who could hand knowledge on.

We often don't talk about that in this country. And I know why, I get why, I understand why and I accept why. But what I would like to be able to do in 2024 is celebrate the strength of First Nations people without it being the thing that takes the deficit off the table. That's what I would like to see change.

JUDE BARLOW

I Do you have a question for you online, and the question is, what would you say to your 17-year-old self? What advice would you give them coming into the public service?

LETITIA HOPE

I would probably say what I say to myself now as a not 17-year-old anymore. Not even close. I mean, my children aren't even 17 anymore.

I would say that you need to back your voice because it matters. It matters in the system. And as I said before, all these things that have shaped your experience in your lives are all the things that shape your professional contribution.

And that's what I would probably say to myself.

JUDE BARLOW

I would have liked to have read those words when I first started in the public service as coming out of being a stay-at-home mum. That would have been something really powerful and useful to have heard.

So thank you for that, Teish.

Do we have any more questions?

In the room, we do have another one online and then a statement I would like to leave to you as well. This question is, can you please share your thoughts on whether APS agencies should offer more positions that can be undertaken remotely to allow more First Nations people to join the public service whilst remaining on country? Because in a cost of living crisis, most capital cities are becoming too expensive for First Nations people and the ability to work in live and regional remote locations would attract a wider spectrum of talent to the APS.

LETITIA HOPE

Absolutely. And I think the APS is, as I said earlier to our colleague over here, has come a long way about thinking about that in terms of actively moving, actively allowing workplaces to be in place where people live and in country where people live. And not just service delivery agencies either. So when I started in the public service, the big agencies that had the big national footprints were the Centrelink's of the world or the Medicare's of the world, Defence, Tax maybe, I can't quite remember.

But I think policy agencies are actually now valuing that lived experience and that ability to actually get out of the bubble. And the bubble's important. There is a real craft to the bubble. I kind of get a bit defensive about the bubble sometimes, but there is a real craft to understanding how Canberra works and how you use the infrastructure in Canberra to provide influence, whether it's in the public sector or otherwise.

But I think the public sector has come a long way to understanding, particularly in a post-COVID environment, that there is this intrinsic value of actually having this diversity of perspectives, whether it's in regulatory organisations, policy organisations or service delivery organisations.

JUDE BARLOW

We do have one more question from online, and that is, where did you experience the most career development or professional development? In which agency?

LETITIA HOPE

Oh, that's too hard. As I said, if I think about my career across Commonwealth and state government, and I have worked across both, in lots of different social policy spaces, in big national service delivery and kind of bespoke, Veterans Affairs and Indigenous Affairs and in state government and housing, I think you learn in every job that you do.

And as I said earlier, I genuinely believe, as a good custodian, you always have something to learn and you have to stay humble to learning and humble to new ways of thinking. But you've also got something to teach, right, in every job that you do. And I think that's a really important role of public servants, regardless of whether they are the Dep Sec or whether they're the APS-1 Trainee.

That perspective, that handing information and knowledge over, ebbing and flowing from one to the other, I think is essential in a system like the public sector. And I think that if I think about the different agencies and career paths that I've taken, all of them, I have learned really valuable lessons.

JUDE BARLOW

Fantastic. Are there any more questions in the room?

We do have another question from online. They really are starting to just pile in, aren’t they?

LETITIA HOPE

If that's my family, please stop sending questions.

JUDE BARLOW

So aside from Russ and the Aboriginal Liaison Officer, who else has influenced you during your career?

LETITIA HOPE

Yeah, that's a cracking question. Well, there are many pictures. They used to be on the front of the wall here of incredible, incredible First Nations leaders, you know, Marcia Langton and Pat Turner and Lowitja O'Donohue and the Dodson's, both Pat and Mick Dodson, Bill Jonas, who used to be the CEO, I think he was called the principal back then of this organisation, Tom Calma.

There's a raft of public sector leaders that have influenced my career. And there's a raft of incredible leaders in the public sector that I have dealt with, former secretaries or have mentored me and still actively mentor me, former secretaries and Dep Secs and colleagues across the system.

And as I said in my earlier remarks, and I will make this statement because I genuinely believe it, I've had massive support from my family who keep me really honest. Our conversations at the dinner table are certainly not groupthink. There is a lot of contest happening at our very kitchen table about all kinds of things and the support from them and that ability to be able to keep me really humble and keep me really honest and thinking about my contribution in the system. And they do pay a huge price to support that contribution and I'm very valuable and grateful for that.

But yeah, they're just a few names that I would put out there.

JUDE BARLOW

Fantastic. No more questions online or on the floor, but I do have Len has sent through some words.

LETITIA HOPE

They're very encouraging and persuasive, Len.

JUDE BARLOW

Len has said, "What an exceptional Russ Taylor Oration by you, Teish, an inspiring and brilliant senior public servant, delivering an oration that was heartfelt and enlightening and always engaging. Thank you, Teish. Your willingness to deliver the Russ Taylor Oration today is a testament to your unwavering commitment to a life of public service and the sense of purpose in custodianship that we all must remember as senior leaders, particularly senior Indigenous leadership and its critical role in delivering services to our First Nations communities."

So genuine heartfelt stuff from Len and that's because that's what he's like.

If there are no more questions, any further questions online or over here, we might, unless you do want to add anything else or?

LETITIA HOPE

No, I think I've said enough today. Everyone knows I'm not short of a word. I think that's probably enough for today.

JUDE BARLOW

Thank you, Teish. I can't thank you enough. I do have some closing remarks that I have to sneak through and I've written quite a few notes, but personally, and Teish and I work together here at AIATSIS and have known each other for quite a number of years now and as always, I find you inspiring. Just your generosity with your time today and your inspiring speech. And in particular, I think for me, the rich reflection on, and I think I've just written your words down, the present power of the public service. And I think as an Australian public servant myself, it really values being in the service and the things that you spoke about in the difference that we as public servants can make to those who we serve.

And you mentioned the word Yindyamarra as well, which of course is a word that means honouring and respect. And more broadly, it implies graciousness and kindness. I've added a word to it, which is courage, because I think as Australian public servants, we must all embody Yindyamarra, including the courage part.

But before we close, I'm just going to do a little advert here now. I would like to encourage you all to put the 2024 AIATSIS Indigenous Art Market in your diaries. It will be held on the lawns next to Maraga, and Maraga is the name of this building, which is a Ngunnawal word that means waddy shield, which is a shield that strengthens and preserves and protects. And in this case, it means that we stand here when we protect and we preserve Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander heritage.

So that'll be held here on Acton Peninsula on the 6th to the 8th of December, and we'll showcase some of the very best paintings, textiles, sculptures and jewellery for sale by First Nations art centres and artists from across Australia. And it is definitely one of the highlights on the AIATSIS calendar. And for those of you who can't make it in person, an online market is also available and will be advertised online and through social media.

Thank you all for joining us today for the Russell Taylor Oration. And I'm now inviting those that are here in the room - those online, get your own lunch. I now invite you to join us in the foyer, some light refreshments, and put your hands together for this remarkable young lady.