The importance of graduations

I can see we're a bit excited about winning, but not as excited as we are to be here for your graduation.

And I want to thank Auntie Rhonda for welcoming us, and thank you, Rachel, for your words.

I have worked really hard not to cry prior to my own speech.

So after this, I'm going to be happy to let the emotions well over me, but I want to acknowledge this special land we're on and pay my respects to the traditional owners of this land and of the lands that I represent in the Blue Mountains and the Hawkesbury and the lands that you will work on and tell stories, and acknowledge the storytelling that goes back more than 65,000 years, and pay respects to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders who are with us at this beautiful ceremony today.

Graduations are really important because human beings have always needed rites of passage.

Instinctively, we need moments that mark the end of one chapter and the start of another.

Those of you who specialise in screenwriting and editing will already know the importance of ending and beginning a scene with purpose.

Ceremonies like this ask us to pause, reflect, and be grateful for the growth that has taken place.

They remind us that education is not just about building skills, but about becoming someone new.

Graduations are the final moment that a cohort stands together with their wonderful teachers and mentors after everything you've been through together, before life carries you each in hundreds of different directions, though hopefully not too far from one another.

You're crossing this threshold today because of years of hard work, sacrifice, and commitment to your craft.

Years of excitement, experimentation, and I'm sure exhaustion.

Years punctuated with moments of doubt, pride, and more than a few all nighters.

And yet despite all of the challenges you've encountered, you kept going because something inside you believes that storytelling matters.

That's no small thing.

In a world that moves faster every year and at a time when the threats of social cohesion feel increasingly frayed, storytelling is one of the last things that still asks people to stop, to sit still, to feel something, to put themselves in someone else's shoes.

A country understands itself through the stories it tells, and you now carry the responsibility and privilege to do that.

Governments can't create culture.

Culture is made by people like you.

You are the next generation of storytellers we need, creating meaning, not just making content.

We need people who can capture the beauty, complexity, absurdity, and tenderness of this place.

The human that we use to survive difficult times, the enormous skies, the tiny apartments, the poetry of magpies at dawn, and fluorescent lights in suburban shopping centres.

We need people who can resist the homogenising effects of globalisation on our culture and tell our stories on our terms.

That's you.

Australian storytelling will only thrive if our society chooses to value it.

Stories need audiences, but they also need belief.

They need institutions, investment, education, public support, and governments willing to back the idea that Australian voices deserve to be heard in a world crowded with louder ones.

It was the Whitlam government that established AFGES in 1973, created the Australian Film Commission, which is now Screen Australia in 1975, and increased the minimum requirement for local content on television.

In recent years, the Albanese government has built on that legacy and made one of the strongest commitments to Australia's screen sector since Whitlam.

I'm proud to be part of a government that significantly increased funding for training institutions like the Australian Film Television and Radio School.

We've introduced Australian content obligations for streaming platforms like Netflix and Binge for the very first time.

We've increased funding for Screen Australia, the ABC, SBS, the Australian Children's Television Foundation, and community broadcasting.

We've strengthened the tax incentives that bring major productions and jobs to Australian shores, and as Special Envoy for the Arts, it is my job to amplify the voices of this sector within government, and that’s why I’ll always keep asking for more. But what we’ve already done, we’ve done because we believe Australian we've stories deserve to be heard.

And careers in this sector deserve to be supported.

And I want to tell you that we believe your careers and your ideas are worth investing in.

We do not question the value of what you do or the importance of supporting it.

As a mother of a dancer who became an actor, a son who's a musician, both partnered with actors and filmmakers, I can't tell you how often I used to hear people ask them about their real jobs.

Being creative is a real job.

In the 1980’s, as a radio journalist working in politics in Australia and then overseas, I did sometimes pinch myself that someone paid me to do my job, be a sticky beak into other people's lives, find stories that hadn't been told and get to tell them.

Question decision makers about things they might not really want to talk about, and I have a bit more empathy for those people now that I'm in their shoes as a member of parliament.

But I also understand that the path you're beginning your journey down today will not be easy.

Not always.

There'll be rejection emails, there'll be long nights, there'll be tight budgets and tighter deadlines, and there may be moments when you might confuse difficulty with failure.

It's important that you don't.

The Australian cultural sector relies on stubbornness and passion just as much as it relies on creative talent.

Every feature film, every web series, every documentary, every podcast, every script, and every production exists because someone refused to let go of an idea when letting go might have been easier.

I know AFTRS will have helped refine your creative gifts and technical skills, but persistence is probably the most underrated creative skill that there is.

Today might be the formal end of this stage of your training, but it should not be the end of your learning.

Learn from your colleagues.

Learn from your idols and mentors.

Learn from those who are different to you.

Learn from the risks that pay off as well as the ones that don't.

Some of the most important growth in creative careers happens in work nobody ever sees.

My other piece of advice for you is to keep connecting.

Your careers will be built not just on your talent, but also on your relationships.

One of the great myths about creativity is that it's purely a solitary endeavour.

The truth is that the most fulfilling and rewarding careers in the cultural sector are built on collaboration.

Your reputation will travel further than you might realise.

People will remember that you were reliable under pressure, that you treated your colleagues with respect and goodwill, that you were generous in sharing knowledge, opportunities, and recognition with others.

Those are the people who call you in three or four years time from now and say, hey, I've got this thing, I think you'd be perfect for it.

So be talented, be bold, but also be kind.

People remember kindness for a very long time.

Success in creative life rarely follows straight line.

Sometimes it arrives disguised as failure.

Sometimes the project you thought mattered most quietly disappears, while a small thing you almost didn't make changes your life.

Sometimes your biggest breakthrough comes five years later than you planned, and that's okay.

A creative career is not a single premiere night.

It's a long conversation with the world.

So when deadlines and budgets and algorithms threaten to drain the joy from what you do, try to remember why you began.

Remember how it feels to make something of value that did not exist before you made it.

Remember the warmth and the support in this room right now.

Because despite everything, the uncertainty, the hustle, the endless exporting of files into slightly different formats, it's still a privilege to spend your life making meaning for other people.

Whether you the role you play is creative, technical, or administrative, you're contributing to something larger than yourselves.

You're helping people feel seen, helping strangers understand one another's lives, helping a country understand itself in a fractured and distracted world.

That has never mattered more.

There are people here today who will shape this learning culture in ways that none of us can imagine.

I know that because AFTRS graduates have been doing that as we saw for generations.

Wherever it is you go next, however you choose to use the skills you've learned in this place, I hope you always remember that what you do matters and is deeply valued by our community.

Congratulations on what you've accomplished.

Good luck for your future endeavours, and thank you in advance for everything you'll contribute to cultural life in Australia.

ENDS