Neil Balnaves

Executive Chairman, Southern Star Group 

Ceremony: 11 October 2016, 2pm.

Speech

I stand here before you today just in awe of the progression of young people through the system of education to your big day today, and whilst you’re all busting to get out of here, I’m sure, and celebrate, I’m just going to add a little bit more to your lecture, so excuse me for doing that. Two things I want you to leave with today – there’s a lot you can say about graduation and education. It does set you up in a very, very important way for your careers, whatever you choose them to be. But you must go through life with some maxims that are important to you and important to the country you live in, and important to your fellow countrymen as well. And I want to leave you with two thoughts today as you leave the university and you go out into the harder world, probably, the bigger world, probably sometimes the colder world, but it’s the real world, and there are a couple of standards in life you want to follow in the process of doing that. And I want to just share those with you, which had a large influence on my life. First one I want to mention is mentoring.

Now, it’s a lovely word, it’s used a lot these days, it’s given a lot of emphasis as we go through life, but not many of us really understand exactly the true meaning of the word. To mentor is to really spend time and effort and use your brains and ability to help others. If you can leave a career behind you when you leave this university, start a second career of looking out for others that you can mentor, and have an influence on their life, just like the whole community that surrounds you now and mentors you. There’s obviously no mistake that this university has mentored you – your lecturers, all the academic staff behind me today, are all involved in mentoring you. The whole ethos of this university is mentoring you, but most importantly of all, are those that are lucky enough to have their families here today, who’ve played a large part in mentoring you from just young children, bringing you up in the world, and making sacrifices to put you through university and give you careers and a decent start. So in every respect, your lives are already touched by mentoring; just as you go forward in your lives now, don’t forget to mentor others. It’s a very, very important part of what makes Australia a better country. Or whatever country you do live in, it makes it a better place if we can help others. That’s the first thought I wanted to leave you with today. The second thought is the idea of giving back.

Very few, and it’s a bit of a generalisation, but very few people really understand that Australia is not the greatest country in the western world, the free world, at giving back in charitable, philanthropic purposes. That may come as a surprise, given that we’re an affluent country, but we are way, way behind – Americans, on average, give four times more than Australians; the British give at least twice more than Australians do, and we need to do a catch-up in that cultural effort in being able to give things back to the community, because if we don’t, we don’t build a better country for the next generation and the generations that follow beyond that. So the thought I want to leave you – the second one – is give back to your country, give back to the people that have helped you, give back because in one sense, I do it quite a lot now; I couldn’t afford to do it when I was your age, and I certainly couldn’t afford to do it up until I reached the 60s, but it’s the most exciting thing you can do, and it’s not a matter of money, and the size of the money; it can be effort. It can be just time in an institution, it can be just going down the road and looking after some person who’s got mobility differences or other reasons to need help and can’t help themselves.

Just think of that in life, because if you can make someone else’s life a little better, I promise you two things: you will make their life better, you will feel better, and it is important that we as a community give back, because governments are going to give back less, institutions and public companies are going to give back less, so it’s up to us as Australians, one and all, to give a little bit more of what we can do to help other people. And it doesn’t mean hundreds of thousands of dollars – it can mean $10 dollars a week, it can mean $5 dollars a week, it can mean just a bit of your time. So I want you to leave today as you go out in your careers, thinking very closely, about those two maxims in life. Add your own along the way to it, but it’s all about, as the Vice-Chancellor said today, and the Chancellor, education’s a wonderful thing in this country. We do have the ability to access it, we do have the ability to raise our standards and improve our standards of living, but unless we have a great society around us, it’s all a rather futile job, because we don’t want to be a lot of robotics.

Now, most of you have graduated today in various forms of communication, something that has had a large influence on my life. I can’t give you any secret lessons to it; it is a very complex industry, and going to be terribly, terribly complex in the future as technology changes and the way we consume information, the way we prepare information, the way it flows, is going to change the lives and the way this country, and we, and people, and the world sees itself. But you are a player in that game, and don’t forget what the Chancellor said earlier: there’s a high moral issue to be upheld in doing this at all times, because if the media or the communication, and the message, does not deliver that standard, there’s no way people can raise to a decent standard. You’ve only got to look at some of this current television debate going on in America at the moment to get an idea of just what levels it can drop to, and I don’t say that facetiously – it is appallingly sad to see that happen in what is one of the largest countries, and certainly the richest country in the world. So I want to add, just on top of everybody else’s remarks today: congratulations, sincerely. You’ve worked hard, you’ve succeeded, go out and enjoy yourselves and congratulations.

Thank you.

About the speaker

Neil has worked in media for over 45 years previously holding the position of Executive Chairman of the Southern Star Group, which he founded. He is Chairman of Ardent Leisure Group, one of Australia's most successful owners and operators of premium leisure assets. Neil is also the Chancellor of Charles Darwin University, a Trustee Member of Bond University and in 2009 received an Honorary Doctorate from Bond University. Neil is a Director of the Sydney Orthopaedic Research Institute, a member of the Advisory Council and Dean’s Circle of the University Of New South Wales Faculty Of Medicine and in 2010 received an Honorary Doctorate of the University.

Neil is a Board member of the Art Gallery of South Australia, a Director of Technicolor Australia Limited, serves on numerous advisory and community organisations and is a Foundation Fellow of the Australian Institute of Company Directors.

In 2006 Neil established The Balnaves Foundation, a philanthropic fund that disperses more than $2.5 million dollars annually, supporting eligible organisations that aim to create a better Australia through education, medicine, and the Arts, focusing especially on young people, the disadvantaged and Indigenous communities.