I was born and raised in Sydney; but my mother was a migrant from Hong Kong. The first and only person in her family to go to university, she waited tables when she arrived, before getting a job as a social worker in Canterbury-Bankstown in Sydney’s western suburbs and working as a Chinese interpreter on nights and weekends.
My father couldn’t have been more different: a fourth generation Australian, he grew up in Hornsby in Sydney’s North Shore. He did nighttime classes in accounting at Macquarie University whilst holding down a job as a grocer. He travelled through Asia to buy things like plastic forks and serviettes so that the grocer he worked for could become a supermarket called No Frills Franklins.
These were my parents – an unlikely union between two different cultures – but the dreams they had for their kids emanated from a very Sydney story. A story about a city made great not by its Bridge and Harbour, its houses and high rises, parks and waterways…but by a bigger idea: that a person, irrespective of the circumstances of their birth, or the colour of their passport, could dream big and find a place in this city to live, to work, to study.
They hoped I would go to university but were overjoyed when I later got a chance to be an international student as an Australian Rhodes Scholar at Oxford University in the United Kingdom because they knew that in a connected country we need people who are able to move seamlessly between different parts of the world.
When I decided to turn down opportunities in New York and London to come back to Australia, they knew I was making the right choice because in a fair country, what is important is not how much you get paid, but the gap between the rich and the poor. That is the gap a country’s investment in education closes.
And when I left a business life in Boston Consulting Group to become a university educator – to go back into the classroom and work with catchment schools in our region – they were proud because they know that in a country of light and hope, it is education in schools, TAFEs, and universities that empower people from all walks to live the life they have reason to value.
But let’s face it: right now that big idea is under challenge in Australia. Housing is expensive. Hospitals are busy. Teachers feel overworked, and roads and trainlines are being built but still feel out of reach for some.
In the face of these challenges, there are people in our country who say we must slow down, turn back. They say there is no more room for international students; that we must divide our country and higher education sector between citizens and foreigners, cities and regions, social scientists and engineers, between those who are over 35 years old and under 35 years old and whose post study work rights we must rescind on the eve of their graduation.
I think our country needs to celebrate leaders who choose a different path. Now is the time to celebrate those who, when faced with today’s challenges, are designing tomorrow by using their energy, intellect and social networks to imagine an Australia which is connected, fair and hopeful.
We need leaders who, when faced with a problem, say: “We can fix this, if we bring those working in different sectors together.”
Faced with public dissent, we need leaders who ask, “How can we inform, look long term, and speak to a future that appeals to our higher angels”.
Those leaders know that our country is situated in a global context and must be a beacon for talent from around the world and in particular from across Asia. Well may some wish to privilege the dreams of a kid from Bankstown. But the dreams of a kid from Bankstown are not that different from the dreams of a kid from Bangalore. They are just different moments of time in the human migratory story of this place we call Australia. Indeed, for some of us born of two continents, they are two dreams united in the promise of Australia.
Australia’s civic life is not advanced by treating international education as if this is about revenue, university financing, or the haves and have nots of housing. This is about human livelihoods. It is about brave souls whose families have saved hard, get on a plane, and imagine a better life for themselves either here or in their home country if they study hard and have a go.
In 2004, Barack Obama addressed the Democratic National Convention by sharing the dreams of his father. They were to be a foreign student, in a place called America, not for its weather and beaches, but because of its organizing idea: that opportunity comes to those who persevere. If America would not have Barack Obama but for international education, what happens to Australia when Asia’s next generation knows us better for the deficits and conditionalities we place on our future than on our higher purpose together?
This is amended from a speech given in the presence of the Prime Minister and NSW Deputy Premier at the Sydney Awards hosted by the Committee for Sydney by Professor Eric Knight, Deputy Vice-Chancellor (People and Operations) at Macquarie University
