 Thank you very much Professor Ray Francis for your very generous and kind words and I too add to your sentiments of acknowledgement to Aboriginal people. Whilst this is a formal occasion it's an intimate setting and so I think a few comments from me will probably suffice but I do want to firstly recognise the standing that attaches to an honorary degree for universities and place on record my sincere thanks to the ANU and its University Council for bestowing on me what I appreciate is a very real honour in the truest sense of the word and for taking the time to come out today for this ceremony. I want to pay tribute to my wife Doris who's here today. I think because it's one thing to be given recognition for that that you do and that is important to you but I think it's always the case that the person who provides the opportunity for you to do that is not acknowledged. Suffice to say she's provided unstinting support to me over many many years and what has been sometimes an all too busy life. I think as well I want to place on record my appreciation for the many people that I've worked with over the years some of them are here today. In particular I do want to acknowledge my fellow agents of change as the press release says in Midnight All, Bones Hillman, Rob Hurst, Jim Magini and Martin Roxy. So much of the oil's output over many decades reflects their combined songwriting talents and they've never wavered really in supporting whatever campaign or project I was agitating for us to take a role in nor even shy about suggesting a few of their own on occasion. The fact is that when you receive an award of this magnitude you do ask yourself the question do I really deserve it? It's wonderful to hear the things that have been said about you but none of it is ever done by yourself. In my case obviously emotional moment to recognise Doris's role in our marriage of many years impossible without that. But also in each and every setting impossible without the people that you do work with. And I've often said and I know it comes as a surprise to people but I've never been a believer in this sort of western mythology of the hero. I think it was mythology to be honest. Most of us get good stuff done working with other people and I'm certainly no exception to that. I should say that I was far from an assiduous student in particular when it came to legal studies. In fact when I first came here we were swept up in sort of the backwash of the 60s rolled into ANU in the 70s. And it was a heady time. It was the time of the counterculture. And yes whilst it certainly had some wrinkles and some undesirable consequences. It was also a time when students agitated for change and were very involved in big and important national and international campaigns. Such as ending the war in Vietnam and ending the state of apartheid in South Africa. And I think that time more than anything else led me to believe that anything was possible if you got involved. That it wasn't simply enough to think about it or talk about it. You actually had to go out and join in with others and do something about it as well. And for me that was a lesson that I learned early in life and it's one that I hope has stayed with me since that time. Of course I was already experiencing the tug of music and performing that would ultimately become my main career. If I'd had a set of pipes like that I might have gone a bit quicker I should say. Fantastic. Albeit a career that many of my contemporaries believed to be an exercise in wishful thinking and futility. A little did any of us know really. Notwithstanding all of that again notwithstanding my disinterest the thing that I reflected on and I want to acknowledge particularly to teaching staff including senior professorial teaching staff here is that my lecturers persistent efforts despite my absences and negligent approach to study were sufficient to ensure the imprint of some knowledge of the specialised kind which never faded away. And indeed those lessons initially saved my colleagues in midnight all our livelihood. In a business where managers and promoters did wear what looked like shark skin shoes and they certainly acted the part. During my term at the ACF when legal issues were always bubbling and we were always considering at the time how best to either encourage or prevent governments from doing things which we didn't think were in the interest of the environment. And then once in government and especially in relation to approvals under the Environment Protection, Biodiversity and Conservation Act as it turned out I was a highly activist minister and all of those decisions taken under that act and many of them challenged and all of them by one small one taken by an Australian public service bureaucrat still standing. And then of course as was mentioned in the citation instituting with Foreign Minister Stephen Smith Australia's International Court of Justice action against Japan around scientific whaling. So that learning that I first acquired here and later at the University of New South Wales when I completed my legal studies was in fact invaluable to me. Especially at a time when contemplating the International Court of Justice action it was very clear that the Attorney General's department here, senior and eminent legal advisers and the Department of Foreign Affairs as well were not only opposed but additionally didn't think that the prospects of victory were anything like certain. On the question of genuine reconciliation with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders yes it has been an important issue for me as I know it is for all of us in our current generations. And the law recently I think has played at least a generally constructive role. Unfortunately it's really base politics which is holding us back at this point. In relation to the environment and the super issue of climate change I expect the law to evolve rapidly. In fact it's already been pushed in that direction not only in respect of challenges to government planning decisions and you will have seen only a couple of days ago a decision in the court in New South Wales I think hallmarked decision by Justice Brian Preston about the fact that a development was not proved because it wouldn't be consistent with our obligations under the Paris Agreements. But I think it will extend as well in areas of negligence and liability and in fact I go further and say that eventually we will have national and international tribunals constituted not dissimilar to the International Criminal Court and there will be no prizes for guessing who we want to put in the docks. The Chancellor and others here may have a view about the possibility of standing but my own strong feeling and it was my reason for entering Parliament in the first place is that the civilian population will no longer countenance the negligence of politicians and powerful interest groups who refuse to take this issue seriously. When I came into the Parliament I felt that climate change was an existential threat to this country and to the greater world community and that we needed decisive action. Not only to reduce greenhouse pollution because some of it as you very well know is already in the system but also to start climate proofing our physical and our industrial and social infrastructure wherever we could. And the great tragedy that we're faced with friends and colleagues is that since that time our capacity to do that job has diminished but the threat has greatly increased. But my conviction remains that we must act and I think lawyers and lawmakers and policymakers not only need to respond to the reality of a warming world veering off course but they better get ready for their day in court. Finally quickly universities like this one provide and have a very critical role they provide the inputs in educating young minds. They're expanding and developing and deepening curricula, they're extending research and particularly here in Canberra but in our other cities and regions as well they occupy a very central place in the local architecture of community and there's a history over many many many years maybe not quite as long as the doffing history but certainly a history of the role that university students and academics and teachers can and sometimes do play when nations or communities have got to navigate times of crisis difficult political and social moments. And I think that ANU can and should play that role. I'm aware of the outstanding scholarship and advocacy of a number of ANU personnel on this issue I'm aware of the goals that the university has set itself around sustainability and the like and I applaud those efforts but I would say that we need boldness and we need to move quickly lest the hell of this past summer become the new norm in a future where both horizontal and vertical impacts are going to cascade across our natural landscapes and into the lives of billions of people. For me that's an important thing to have said to you here today because I know that this is a room with people who have the ability to make a difference and to influence things. This morning as Ray was saying I participated in the launch of the Cambry precinct a fantastic what the uni has done there. I talked a little bit about the creative endeavour and I guess I want to close with just a personal reflection about the way that my mind tries to deal with the things in front of me because I am a creative person at heart. I love the business of performing and when the chancellor turned around and said did I come and sort of joked at me to come up and join you didn't realise how close I was Gareth to coming across and taking up the choruses. And it's always been a bit of a wrestle for me between the left hand and the right hand side of the brain between the analytical legal process side and the creative while slightly ragged side. Sometimes they complement one another, sometimes they contest the space and it's been underway in my head for as long as I can remember and it shows no signs of settling down so I have to get used to it. But whichever is prevailing at the time one of the things I have always tried to see is where the possibilities for action to make change lie. It's not enough to be able to make the declaratory statement about the need for change. We have an expression in our family that that's a sob though a statement of the bleeding obvious. It's the next step. There are possibilities for action to make the change lie and then when that's identified what can you do in concert with others to make that change happen. That's the goal or the task to try and do your bit with the tools that you have at hand to shape the world for the better understanding that no matter what the circumstances or how dire things might seem every single little bit actually helps. There are people in this room who've done that I know and there are many others outside this room right around the country and around our planet likewise who toil and who go unrecognised. And I'm more than aware that a publicly visible life is no more or less significant than any other life so consequently I'm acutely mindful that there's much more for me to do as well. So the honour that has been bestowed on me today I truly do appreciate and I'm grateful for it but hopefully it's going to strengthen my resolve and increase my determination to continue on with the task that I've set for myself with the many others that I've worked with in the past. Thank you very much.