University Club of Dunedin lunch

May I begin by greeting everyone in the languages of the realm of New Zealand - English, Maori, Cook Island Maori, Niuean, Tokelauan and New Zealand Sign Language. Greetings, Kia Ora, Kia Orana, Fakalofa Lahi Atu, Taloha Ni and as it is the afternoon and the sun is high in the sky (Sign)

May I specifically greet you:  President of the University Club, Bill Wilson; Chancellor of the University of Otago, Lindsay Brown; Your Worship Peter Chin, Mayor of Dunedin; Distinguished Guests otherwise; Ladies and Gentlemen.

Thank you for inviting my wife Susan and I to attend this luncheon at the University Club of Dunedin.  It is an honour to be speaking to such an audience. 

I am conscious of joining a line of distinguished speakers who have preceded me.  At its first meeting in March 1923 I understand, the speakers were Sir Robert Stout, then Chief Justice and who was to retire that year as Chancellor of the University of New Zealand, and the then Speaker of the House, Sir Charles Statham.  Other notable contributors have included 1936 Olympic champion, Jack Lovelock, and at least two Nobel Laureates, Lord Rutherford, and Sir Derek Barton.

Within a month of the club's establishment, I understand that  my predecessor, Viscount Jellicoe, a former First Sea Lord, who had previously commanded Britain's Grand Fleet during the Battle of Jutland in 1916, spoke to the Club and began a tradition where every New Zealand Governor-General has, in turn, addressed the Club.  I am delighted to continue the tradition and I can only hope that what I have to say will measure up with that contributed by my predecessors.

I would like to take an opportunity to speak of the scope of activities since taking up residence in Government House in August 2006 and secondly to express thoughts on a matter which will be close to the hearts of many people in this group - the value of a tertiary education.

The first 18 months of the term has been many things - an honour and privilege, a learning curve and a mixture of exhilaration and anxiety.  As one versed in the law and administration, the niceties of our particular constitutional setup are matters of at least nearby knowledge, but doing the job makes one realise everything that is involved and its essential simplicity.  From the first piece of legislation to give Governor-General assent to, the Coroners Act 2006, I have signed many pieces of legislation and presided over weekly meetings of the Executive Council.  I have also had the singular experience of signing into law the largest piece of legislation ever passed by our Parliament, which you will probably not be surprised to find was the Income Tax Act 2007, which was no fewer than 2,855 pages long!  The Minister of Revenue assured me that that was because it there was a lot of white space, it was better worded and that it repealed an even larger amount of incomprehensible law.

In the last year and a half, Susan and I have, with the exception of the Ross Dependency, had the opportunity to visit almost all parts of New Zealand and its wider Realm, including Tokelau, Niue and the Cook Islands.  We have also visited Samoa twice, to attend the funeral of the Head of State, and later for a formal State Visit.  We have also visited Belgium, to attend the European commemorations of the 90^th anniversary of the third Battle of Passchendaele and have just returned from a State Visit to Australia, where we met the Australian Governor-General, Major-General Michael Jeffery and Mrs Marlena Jeffery, and the new Australian Prime Minister, Hon Kevin Rudd.

We have welcomed many more than a dozen Heads of State to New Zealand with formal welcomes at the Government Houses in Wellington or Auckland and have accepted the credentials of many new Ambassadors and High Commissioners.  I have opened new offices, buildings and/or parts thereof for many schools and worthy charities and the touring throughout New Zealand has meant meeting people from many walks of contemporary life.

Investiture ceremonies have been a particular delight as they are an opportunity to recognise in public the achievements of New Zealanders in fields as diverse as sport, science, business, education, the law, and public and community service.  A particular highlight was that of investing Corporal Willie Apiata with the first Victoria Cross for New Zealand in July last year.

In a solid list of spoken contributions, I have continued to stress some key themes—the opportunities and challenges of our nation's increasing diversity; the benefits of community engagement; and the importance of civics education.

In my previous careers, as a lawyer, judge and ombudsman, I was often involved in the resolution of inherently negative matters.  As a lawyer it was either prosecuting or defending someone accused of a criminal offence.  As a judge, presiding over trials and sentencing those convicted to custodial or other punitive sentences.  As an ombudsman, it was attempting to mediate and resolve complaints between members of the public and local or central governmental agencies.

As Governor-General, another facet of the jewel is exposed when there is the opportunity to see New Zealand and New Zealanders at their best.  There are many wonderfully positive activities occurring in our country and it is to my mind regrettable more of them did not gain coverage in our media in between the stories on crime and mayhem.

I have given this update not, as some might think as an extended 'what I did on my holidays' story, but to demonstrate the breadth of the Office of Governor-General and the unique way in which the role is fulfilled in this country.  While there are similarities between the New Zealand position and other Governors-General, each I suspect, has developed in particular ways that best suit the local circumstances and needs.  From the appointment of the first New Zealand-born Governor-General Sir Arthur Porritt in 1967 to the first Maori, Sir Paul Reeves in 1985, to the first woman, Dame Catherine Tizard in 1990, and now to my appointment as the first Governor-General of Asian descent, the role, and those who hold office, continues to evolve.

I would now like to turn to my second point, the value of a tertiary education and particularly the value of a University education.

It is said by some in the media that tertiary education should be more focused on jobs and our economy's immediate needs.  There is an element of truth in this and our country needs more qualified tradespeople that our polytechnics are well placed to train. 

This argument, however, is sometimes applied to universities, and as organisations that receive significant public funding, it is right that there should be scrutiny of the teaching, research and community service they undertake.

But there are long-standing principles of university autonomy and academic freedom in teaching and research. The Education Act 1989 recognises both these principles including the right of "academic staff and students, within the law, to question and test received wisdom, to put forward new ideas and to state controversial or unpopular opinions". 

But in recognising these freedoms, Parliament also placed two key riders on them, namely that universities and other tertiary institutions must maintain the highest ethical standards and permit public scrutiny of them and also to be accountable for the proper use of the public funds given to them.

This seems to me a fair and reasonable balancing of interests although there will always be debate along the borders where academic freedom and institutional autonomy meet with the wider public interest.

But what some of the debate about utilitarianism in university education misses is the fundamental nature of what a university education provides.  I graduated in law from The University of Auckland some years ago, after a brief flirtation with medicine as what used to be called a "fresher" at this University.

A key aspect of my own University education was not to learn legal precedents for their sake but how to approach a new problem I might know little about, and begin the process of understanding and analysis before then mounting an argument about it.  As a law student it would be in the form of an essay.  As a lawyer it would be in a submission to court. As a judge it might be a legal decision or summing up to a jury and as an ombudsman, a report or recommendation regarding a complaint from a member of the public.

Throughout my career, there was no way in which I might know of every legal issue or precedent I might face.  But what I did gain was an ability to find the information needed, and the skill to extract from it enough to understand and then [hopefully] solve the problem being faced.

That in essence is what the American psychologist BF Skinner meant when he once said that: "education is what remains when what has been learned has been forgotten."  The instant recall of a particular legal precedent may fall away with time, but the fundamental skills remain regardless of the task you are performing in four years' time or forty years' time.

I will give another example of how these fundamental skills are so valuable. I would hazard a guess that many people here have use of a cell phone.  They are an integral part of all aspects of life in the 21^st Century from business through to family and social life. 

The cell phone industry is also of billion dollar proportions employing many thousands of people worldwide.  That includes the people who design and manufacture them; those who build and maintain their technological infrastructure as well as many others who sell, market and administer the various billing systems for them. 

But the cell phone industry and all the jobs that go with it simply did not exist 30 years ago.  There is no way that the education system could have provided the skills for jobs for an industry that didn't exist. 

But what our education system, and particularly our Universities, did provide was people who had sufficient skills in technology, science, marketing, information management and administration to build an industry that exists today.  They were people who, in their various disciplines, developed the knowledge they had, applied critical thinking and, by working collaboratively in teams, were able to communicate that new knowledge to others. Many people graduating from our Universities today will finish their working lives in industries that do not exist today.

What a University education also provides is a wider understanding of who we are, where we came from and how our world works.  Because our culture is a written culture, it is based on the accumulated knowledge and wisdom of much more than a thousand years of learning that is stored in libraries, archives and increasingly in computer databases.

In conclusion then, the value of these fundamental skills and how to access this bountiful array of knowledge is hard to measure.  And because of that, its often not given due weight in education debates.  But that it is valuable goes without saying.  To close, I will proffer a quote from the former Head of the Alexander Turnbull Library in Wellington, Jim Traue, who put this well when he said:

"As the inheritors of a written culture we can wear it lightly because we no longer need to depend on memory. We may not be able to recite our genealogies, or all of Shakespeare or Milton or the Bible, but nevertheless they are there, indestructible, immutable, always there when we need them, safe in the storehouses outside of our minds our culture has created.  Just as agricultural societies could store their surplus food, so literate societies could store their intellectual surplus, their experience, to call on in the future when it was needed."

And on that heartening note, I will close in New Zealand's first language, Maori, by offering everyone greetings and wishing you all good health and fortitude in your endeavours. No reira, tena koutou, tena koutou, kia ora, kia kaha, tena koutou katoa.