 Your Excellencies, representing the diplomatic corps in Canberra, Professor Ian Young, Vice-Chancellor of the Australian National University, Professor Veronica Taylor, Dean of the College of Asia and Pacific, Professor Tony Mackay, Dean of the College of Arts and Social Sciences, Professor Andrew Roberts, Dean of the College of Physical and Mathematical Sciences, Professor Tom Compass, Director of the Crawford School of Public Policy, other distinguished members of the Academy, distinguished guests from across the Commonwealth Public Service, ladies and gentlemen, a long introduction. I'm sorry. Good evening and welcome to this very special event, the valedictory address by Professor Michael Lestrange AO, head of the National Security College of the Australian National University. As part of this welcome, can I also acknowledge and celebrate the first Australians on whose traditional lands we meet and pay my respects to the elders of the Ngung Maw people both past and present. I'd also like to especially welcome members of the Lestrange family, Michael's brother Peter and his sister Frances Ahia, Michael's wife Jane and two of Michael and Jane's five sons, Edward and Harry. Welcome to you all, a special welcome. Just so that we all know the proceedings for the evening, in a moment I will introduce the Vice-Chancellor, who will say some words of welcome and introduction. I'll then ask Mr George Brennan, one of the senior members of the National Security College and importantly, a secondee from the Commonwealth Public Service to reflect on his period of working with Michael and the leadership impact that Michael has had on the college. George will then introduce Professor Lestrange and he will then deliver his valedictory address. At the conclusion of the address, I will ask Dr Margot McCarthy, the Associate Secretary National Security within the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet, to respond. And after that, I'll close proceedings and we'll move to the Springbank Canberra Rooms for a reception, but more on that later. For now, may I introduce to you and ask to speak the Vice-Chancellor of the Australian National University, Professor Enya. Well, thank you, and on behalf of the university, can I welcome all of our visitors here. The National Security College was founded in 2010 as a joint initiative between ANU and the Commonwealth Government. In the years since, it's gone from strength to strength and continues to enjoy remarkable support from participants who are involved in the program, from the agencies and departments that support it, and of course, more recently from its academic students involved in its masters and academic programs. There are presently over 100 students in those graduate programs, which have been operating for only a very short period of time. And more than 2,000 Commonwealth officers have attended a short course of one sort or another at the NSC, some of which, in fact, involve more than 200 hours of teaching. These are really quite impressive numbers for what is a very young institution. And the success, I think, of the NSC comes down to a number of really significant issues. The first one was that, of course, the NSC was established to meet a genuine and ongoing need. That of broadening the understanding of security issues and facilitating professional linkages around this. The NSC also has worked really assiduously under Michael's leadership to understand and respond to the practical needs of national security practitioners, both in terms of its teaching activities, its short course activities, and more recently in terms of its research undertakings as well. It's developed a rigorous and contestable teaching methodology for executive education and a unique set of academic offerings as well. As far as I'm aware, and I could be corrected, but I'm fairly sure this is correct, as far as I'm aware, there are no comparable offerings of this type anywhere else in Australia and indeed, I think, throughout the region. So the NSC has very much found a place for itself, both within this university, but also within the public service that it services in a very important way. And of course, Canberra, I think we'd all like to think, is indeed the heart of public policy development in this country and for ANU, public policy and being a participant in public policy is something which is critically important to this university. And of course, national security is core public policy business and therefore something which ANU is tremendously committed to as we are to the future of the NSC. As I said before, the National Security College has developed an enviable reputation for both the quality and the breadth of its undertakings. And that is in no small way down to Michael the Strange and the leadership he's provided in his time here at the NSC. And really, tonight is an opportunity for us to celebrate some of those contributions which Michael has made. And I'm sure there'll be many others to speak on that a little bit later on. It's no small task to bridge the different cultures between the university and the Australian public service. But this is a role which Michael has embraced so well. I would particularly again like to acknowledge the tremendous job which Michael has done over the last five years as the Foundation Director, taking the college from really just an idea to what it is today. So Michael, we have an enormous debt of gratitude for you and the hard work that you've undertaken over that period of time. And so just as I have very much enjoyed working with Michael over the last four years, I and I'm sure the rest of the audience look forward to hearing his comments and discussion this evening on sustainable excellence in education and public policymaking in this country. Thank you. Thank you Vice-Chancellor. Can I now call on Mr George Brennan? As I said, one of the senior members of the National Security College and also a secondee from the Commonwealth Department of Infrastructure to reflect on his period of working with Michael, and particularly on the leadership impact that Michael has had on the college, George. I first met Michael when I came to the first senior executives course that the college run. There had been a pilot course, but this was the first SES course proper. So that was in 2011. And then subsequently an opportunity came to come work at the college, which I snapped up. In no small measure because of the opportunity or how I'd enjoyed working with Michael on the course. And obviously he'll make his own remarks about the NSC journey, but he was involved as the Vice-Chancellor said in shaping what the NSC was and could be. There was at one point a rather grand vision for the NSC, which in a way fortunately didn't come to pass. I mean, you can only imagine when we think about the budget journeys that we've all been through in the last few years how difficult it might have been if that rather grander vision of the NSC had been attempted. And I think that tells you something about Michael's leadership style and talking a bit from an insider's perspective of the NSC is what I thought I might do this evening. And he brings a sense of history and perspective. And more substantially that's reflected in things like the mill around tables, which celebrate Professor Miller and the naming of the G.J. Yind wing in this Crawford building, which we occupy reflecting, that's another piece of shared history between the Commonwealth and the university. He's always looking to balance forces of continuity and change and the long trends of public policy. And he's always got an eye for relationships and the consequences of relationships. So those are themes about Michael's leadership style that we sort of enjoy in the NSC. An early decision he made was not to promote the NSC too heavily before we'd actually proven what we'd got. He didn't want to over promote something until he was confident it was working. So the NSC spent its first few years delivering things like mad, but being reasonably quiet about it. And while developing a view of pedagogy and settling a view on how we should approach our teaching. And in the Commonwealth courses, we were shepherding the debate about what this new beast of coordination of security was meant to be. There was the new national security statement and there was a big debate going on in the Commonwealth about what the boundaries of it were and the NSC enjoyed being part of that debate. And the merits of this approach have paid off. The Vice Chancellor quoted some figures about our enrolments and the growth has really been very satisfying for those of us working in the college. Student care has been a feature of what the NSC does and what Michael does. No one gets through an NSC short course or a program without the sort of eagle eye of Michael looking at you at some point and being challenged to rise to the occasion or the debate that's underway. And the effort's rewarded not necessarily with high marks and not necessarily with high praise, but at least with some recognition for the effort that's involved. So in our short courses, for example, the groups are often challenged to come to grips with a wicked problem within a few days, which their leaders, of course, have been grappling with for years or months, often without success, but the short courses expected to come to terms with it in a few days. And each group that does so gets a carefully graduated response at the end of that from Michael and some other people on the panel as to how they've gone. And I think the most revealing thing about all of that really is that even the groups receiving the most qualified accolade at the end of that process feel quite appreciated and acknowledged. I think there's something about the years as a diplomat that you can give quite qualified feedback to people and they can still feel really quite rewarded for it. Another feature of life with Michael, which I think anyone who's worked with him is aware is worry. Fortunately, national security, there's always something to worry about. So that's a good thing. And I think he's in the right field. And maybe what Michael worried most about was money and I think Margo and her secretarial colleagues can be quite comfortable with that. He carries a sense of public responsibility that really is in many ways in the best sense of public administration. And equally, I think in the tradition of those who like me watched Senators Brom and Bishop and John Forkner excoriate succession of public servants from defence to tax in Senate estimates hearings on all sorts of subjects from loving submarines and everything in between. There is that sense of what are we doing with the Commonwealth monies that we receive and the support that the college receives. It's a very good foundation for joint initiative and I think one that has helped to maintain the confidence of our co-founder. So part of what all that means is that with Michael's leadership and focus, the students and the partners of the NSC may not be aware of it, but everything we do has been reviewed at least three times. And everything Michael says in electoral speech has certainly been considered three times. You know, one of the public servant tricks is if you use words that were approved last time, they're probably fairly safe this time. Well, that's not true. They'll be rewritten again this time. And there's a view about quality and standards that Michael has imbued into how the NSC approached its early years, which I think is very good for a new institution to start from. And that applies academically, it applies commercially, it applies in how we try to approach our short courses. I think it pervades the grounding we've been given and it's a very good foundation to work from for the future for a new part of the ANU. And with that, I think it's time to ask Professor Lestrange to say his bid on public policy, academia and the NSC. Your Excellencies, Vice-Chancellor, distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen. Firstly, thank you very much Vice-Chancellor for your generous remarks. They're greatly appreciated, both personally and institutionally. And thank you, George, for your insights into how the NSC actually works. My right of reply on that one will await, but not today. At the outset, can I also thank all of you for the effort that you've made in being here this evening. You bring together a broad cross-section of different groups, which have provided indispensable support to the National Security College in its establishment and consolidation phases over the past five years. Here this evening are many current and former members of the College's Advisory Council that has played a vital role right from the start. Current Vice-Chancellor, Ian Young. Former Vice-Chancellor, Ian Chubb, who was intending to be here this evening until storms in Sydney intervened this afternoon. Dr. Margot McCarthy, Duncan Lewis, Michael Pazzullo, Alan Gingel, Professor Veronica Taylor, Professor Tony McKay, Professor Richard Rigby. There are also many senior officers here from the agencies and departments of government, with which the College has worked so closely over the past five years. And I thank you all for your presence this evening at a particularly busy time of the year. There are a number of members of Heads of Mission with us this evening, including the Dean of the Diplomatic Corps and the Ambassador of Argentina, Pedro Velargro Delgado, who himself has been such a consistently strong supporter of the College's work since our establishment. I also wish to acknowledge those here tonight without whom the College simply could not have performed its role. Our own College staff members, our visiting fellows, students from our academic programs, participants from our executive and professional development courses, and many ANU staff, more generally, and others who have made such important contributions to those programs and courses often over a very long period of time. And as I look around this audience this evening, I see many of them. Can I also take this opportunity, as Martin generously did, to acknowledge a number of members of my own family who are here tonight, particularly my wife Jane, who probably expected some respite after supporting me through four and a half years as Secretary of the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, but who then subsequently saw me consumed in new and demanding challenges here at ANU. So I thank her tonight very much for her continuing forbearance and understanding. I'd like to take the opportunity this evening to put the story of the establishment and development of the National Security College into the broader context of the interaction between scholars and policy practitioners in Australia, and to relate it particularly to the public policy mission of the Australian National University and the changing requirements of Australian National Security Policymaking. In its modern form, the Australian story of the interaction between academia and public policy has been an evolving mix of reticence and engagement, shared purposes and distinctive roles. Academic engagement in Australian public policy has taken many forms over the long period of time. For example, Professor James Cotton's wonderful book published last year on the Australian School of International Relations highlighted eight extraordinary individuals who moved between universities and government service between the 1920s and the 1950s, focusing on and significantly influencing Australia's changing international role and choices. Similarly, there have been many other Australian academics over the years who have seen themselves not as isolated intellectuals, but as engaged contributors to community education in a broad sense and to a vibrant civic culture. Others again have conducted academic research in highly productive ways that have facilitated innovation, enterprise and scientific breakthroughs in partnerships with government and the private sector. There has been another view of scholarship, however, that has emphasised a different approach. In that view, detachment from the processes of governance, though not from funding by government, was seen as both necessary and desirable for what many scholars saw as their true purpose, to follow through on deep intellectual curiosity wherever it may lead and to pursue knowledge for its own sake. An inevitable gap opened up between such scholars and those involved in public affairs and administration who saw their priorities very differently, as more immediate, more practical, more shaped by changing objectives, more dependent on information that was not necessarily complete or fully consistent and more responsive to national interests and community needs. This led to what Professor Peter Schergold once described as the great divide between academic research and public policy development in Australia. That divide is focused on the differences between academic and policy practitioner approaches. Their different work cultures, their different benchmarks for professional advancement, their different methodologies and often their different starting points and end points. There was also an emphasis on different priorities. Practitioners are seen as focused on identifying in the public interest challenges, risks, vulnerabilities and opportunities, on recommending practical action to address them and on implementing such action once decided by the government of the day. The priorities of academics are seen differently, providing societal, historical and comparative contexts, identifying patterns within a shifting balance of change and continuity, testing the possibilities for innovation often in partnership with others and pursuing evidence-based research, the outcomes of which are unsuayed by the particular policy preferences of the government of the day. These differences between academic and policy contexts do reflect some ongoing realities, but they do not constitute a comprehensive or enduring or impenetrable division between academia and public policy. What is more, such differences have become less stark in contemporary circumstances in which both the demand and supply contexts have changed. On the demand side, the requirement of the policy world for knowledge and perspectives beyond government has grown significantly. This continues to be driven by the accelerating pressures of economic globalization and the information revolution and by the interconnectedness and complexities of so many directions of modern public policy, particularly national security policy. It is also being driven by the decline over recent times in the in-house research capabilities of most agencies and departments of government. One result is that the interaction between scholarly work and practitioner priorities has increasing potential relevance across all dimensions of the national interest, from the life sciences to the social sciences, from biotechnology to information technology, from healthcare research to demography, from environmental protection to energy resource access, from global terrorism to arms control, and in many other areas as well. Between cup and lip, of course, much can be lost, but the potential gains are clear with the challenge lying in their realisation. In national security, one particular driver of the expanding demand for non-government input relates to the broadening concept of education in the armed forces, and especially the importance of civilian graduate education for military officers. One of the United States' most senior officers of recent times, General David Petraeus, famously said in 2007 that the most powerful tool any soldier carries is not his weapon, but his mind. Now, I can imagine some very dire circumstances where a soldier's weapon actually would be uniquely valuable, but I think I understand the point the general was making. David Petraeus went on to say, the future of the U.S. military requires that we be competent warfighters, but we cannot be competent warfighters unless we are as intelligent and mentally tough as we are aggressive and physically rugged. We will become that way not merely by observing the differences between the military and the civilian academic world, but by experiencing them firsthand. The compelling logic of this approach has been implemented extensively over time in the United States and in many other countries as well, and it resonates particularly strongly in the outlook and practical commitments of the Australian Defence Force, with which the National Security College, along with other areas of ANU, has such strong ongoing connections, and I'm delighted this evening to welcome the Chief of Army here. So demand on the part of those in government or serving governments of the day for non-government knowledge and perspectives is certainly growing. The supply of policy relevant and capability relevant knowledge is also growing. Universities of course are one such source of supply, but only one. There are many others in think tanks, in professional bodies, in non-government organisations, in consultancy companies, and in other entities comprising knowledge brokers, committed specifically to providing what is now called analysis for action. In a wider sense, the potential sources of knowledge are growing exponentially, facilitated by what Professor Glenn Davis described in his 2010 boy lectures as a global, digitised, and increasingly open republic of learning. Furthermore, these sources of knowledge supply are delivered through proliferating means, from books and journals to websites and blog sites, from print and electronic media to social and new media. These shifting parameters of demand and supply are eroding many of the old mindsets about the quarantined and segmented roles of the academic and policy worlds. So where does this leave the current interaction between the two? Some distance between academia and policy processes has always been necessary, desirable, and healthy for both. That remains the case today and it will into the future. So two universities are, and should remain, home to research that is unconnected to public policy and whose practical applications are uncertain. But what is also clear is that the scope for and the potential value of productive interaction between the academic and public policy worlds is greater and more needed today than it's ever been before. This interaction will work most productively when policy practitioners and academics guard against insularity, inaccessibility, and false expectations of each other. When they clarify what works best for each in terms of the focus, outcomes, and presentation of research in the context of evidence-based policy. When practitioners encourage and assess on their merits, new ideas, options, and analyses from external sources, including academia. When academic contributions reflect genuinely interdisciplinary approaches relevant to public policy choices rather than rigid and artificial compartmentalization. When such academic contributions illuminate policy choices by providing value-adding qualities in terms of context, perspective, practicality, and consequences. When there is academic understanding that practical policy complexities rarely yield to neat conceptual templates. When there is practitioner recognition that the value of academic exchanges lies more often in the search for common understanding of problems than in the quest for agreed solutions to them. And perhaps above all, when academics acknowledge the requirement for practitioners to be responsive to the public interests and to the priorities of the government of the day, and when practitioners respect the primacy of intellectual integrity in academic contributions to public policy. These are circumstances in which academic practitioner interaction works best. It works suboptimally when the value of academic or other research is calibrated by policy practitioners only in terms of its compatibility with established thinking and policies. Or when academic research is cherry-picked for its utility in cross-portfolio rivalries. Or when academic contributions themselves constitute little more than strident one-dimensional advocacy rather than genuine, valuating insights. In international terms, the United States led the way not only in integrating the work of academia and the directions of public policy, but also in facilitating exchanges between those in academic positions and in government service. In fact, the productive and vigorous interaction of private sector, public sector, and academic expertise across the full range of American public policy challenges and opportunities has been one of the defining strengths of its system of governance and its capacity for national renewal. The same trend, if not the same intensity, has been increasingly apparent over more recent times in other countries, particularly in Europe and parts of Asia. Australia too has adapted to the forces of change that have enhanced the potential value of scholar-practitioner exchanges. But we have done so with our own distinctive mix of enthusiasm and neglect, stop and start, fulfilment and frustration. Important progress has been made in cooperative partnerships in some areas of public policy, but the surface of the potential in many others has only been scratched. Over recent years, it has become clearer in Australia as elsewhere that the osmosis at work between the academic and practitioner worlds can operate in many ways and through many means. There are constructive contributions to be made by academic analyses that challenge conventional wisdom, all the conceptual frameworks in which particular public policies are developed. It is also true, but less often acknowledged, that equally constructive contributions can be made by academic analyses that are less contrary, that reinforce the relevance of broad directions of prevailing policymaking, or that highlight the benefits of adaptations to them rather than their abandonment. Questioning policy assumptions and outcomes, which is a positive academic contribution, does not inevitably lead to rejection of them because scholarly analyses should lead where they will, irrespective of current policy settings. Just as the scope of constructive academic contributions to public policymaking processes is broad, so too are the ways in which such contributions can be made. Some academic influences on policymaking can be an unintended by-product rather than a predetermined purpose. For example, when the academic publication of data or interpretive analyses is drawn at their own initiative by ministers or policy practitioners or intelligence analysts to assist their work. Other academic contributions to policymaking processes can be more deliberate and focused, encompassing informed public commentary on topical issues of the day, or directly commissioned academic advice or membership of public-private partnerships, advisory committees and government reviews. In more recent times, and certainly for the National Security College, there has been another important channel through which academic perspectives can contribute to public policy, namely the provision of intensive executive and professional development courses for those working in government on policy or intelligence issues or in defence and law enforcement roles. Such courses contribute less publicly, but no less importantly, to public policymaking perspectives by testing assumptions, broadening horizons, exploring new dimensions and encouraging new professional connections. In all these aspects of the changing interaction between academic work and public policy, the Australian National University has played a path-breaking role in this country. The act of parliament establishing the ANU, which was passed into law in 1946, set out the purposes of the university, including its role, to encourage and provide facilities for post-graduate research and study, both generally and in relation to subjects of national importance to Australia. From its inception, therefore, a connection to public policy issues has been in this university's DNA. ANU founders, including H.C. Coombs and Sir John Crawford, saw the fulfilment of its responsibilities in relation to subjects of national importance to Australia as part of the university's contribution to public service in its widest context and a reflection of a bargain between the university and the national community that helped to sustain it. The connection to public policy issues has continued as a distinctive characteristic of the ANU for almost 70 years. Along with excellence in education and research, the pursuit of excellence as a national and international policy resource stands as one of the three pillars of the university's current strategic plan, ANU to 2020. Almost exactly five years ago, the National Security College was instituted as a joint initiative between the Commonwealth and the ANU. The vision for the college was as clear as it was challenging. Drawing on a base of high quality education, research and outreach, the college aspired to enhance strategic understanding and critical thinking on Australia's current and emerging national security environment, to facilitate trusted networks of interaction among areas of national security expertise within and outside government, and to build greater awareness and appreciation among Commonwealth agencies and departments of different perspectives on issues of shared focus. The means whereby the college could achieve progress towards this vision were equally clear and challenging. They lay in a commitment to open intellectual exchanges and shared professional experiences. The pursuit of best practice teaching and research on national security issues as part of the college's academic program. The development of a tailored range of programs in executive and professional development for officers of the national security community and government. The promotion of a contested learning environment built on broad and trusted relationships and the implementation of an active outreach program to engage the perspective of the states and territories, the private sector, non-government organizations, and the wider community on national security issues. The vision for the national security college was an ambitious one, requiring the application of deep reserves of trust and goodwill by all parties. The means for realising that vision was equally ambitious, demanding effective cooperation among many partners and broad bases of support. Over the past five years, the college has committed itself in a wholehearted way to translating its broad aspirational goals into practical progress on the ground. And this is reflected in the degree programs, the executive programs to which the Vice-Chancellor referred. This progress over a relatively brief period of time has been made possible by many factors. One was the vision and commitment of those who, at its inception, saw a college such as this as being in the national interest, as well as being supportive of the purposes for which this university was established. And I'm thinking in that context, particularly of the then Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd, the then Vice-Chancellor, Ian Chubb, the then National Security Advisor, Duncan Lewis, and the then Deputy National Security Advisor, Angus Campbell. That vision and commitment have been sustained over time. They've been reflected in the strong support and encouragement that the college has received from Commonwealth agencies and departments, as well as the productive and developing partnerships that have been built within the university. The college's progress also owes much to the commitment and hard work of its small staff. They have been part of implementing a big and bold idea, a task that demands resilience as well as creativity, activism as well as endurance, faith as well as hope. NSC staff have shown all those qualities and many more over the years, and what has been achieved by this college is a reflection of their dedication and professionalism for which I thank them. As ever, the National Security College needs to look more to its future than its past. As I've said on many occasions, this college is only as good as its next executive development course, its next academic semester, its next research output, its next outreach activity. The college should approach these challenges confident in the knowledge that the convictions and purposes which inspired its establishment five years ago remain even more relevant today. Australia's national security opportunities and challenges are increasingly interconnected among political, military, diplomatic, economic, technological, societal and demographic developments. That interconnectedness demands policy responses which effectively coordinate the different perspectives of Commonwealth agencies and departments, the various layers of government in Australia, as well as the private sector, non-government organisations, academia and the wider community. In this context, the college has worked to facilitate trusted networks linking areas of national security expertise within, as well as outside government remains more relevant than ever. In addition to being increasingly interconnected, the national security opportunities and challenges that Australia faces are also increasingly complex and contested. Correlations of power among major states are changing. The concept of national security in Australia is evolving. Older demarcations between domestic and foreign policy priorities and between public sector and private sector responsibilities are changing in important ways. The balance between community security and individual rights is being recalibrated. The interaction between national security policy aspirations and resourcing capabilities is shifting in an era of fiscal constraint. In the context of these and other challenges, the college's role in enhancing strategic awareness and critical thinking has even greater potential resonance. The college has special ongoing responsibilities as a joint initiative of the Commonwealth and the ANU. It needs to be responsive to national security policy-making priorities and requirements. And it also needs to safeguard the university's standards of excellence in teaching, research and intellectual integrity. These are demanding and critically important responsibilities. And in their implementation lies the key to the college's continuing relevance and growth. May I conclude on a personal note. Almost 40 years ago I had the good fortune to be taught by Headley Bull when he was professor of international relations at Oxford University, a position to which he had come from the chair in international relations, which he held with such distinction here at ANU. The time I had with Headley at Oxford were days when undergraduates still had long one-on-one seminars with the great professors. An experience that I still remember as being both terrifying and incredibly uplifting at the same time. Headley Bull remains to this day almost 30 years on from his death, the single most important intellectual influence on me. This was not because our views of the world coincided. They often did not. All I must say, his were incomparably more informed than mine. But in terms of the rigour of his method, the logic of his argument, the sweep of his intellectual vision and the elegant power of his writing, Headley Bull was and in my view still is in a league of his own. Headley often referred to the inherent tensions between the focus of public policy and the purposes of academic study and inquiry. And the very real challenges that each faced in connecting with the other. He once wrote that the study of world politics was an intellectual activity, and not a practical one. But for all that, he was also deeply appreciative of the mutual benefits to be derived from productive exchanges between officials and academics. In fact, in the mid-1960s he was for a number of years director of the Arms Control and Disarmament Research Unit of the British Foreign Office. In 1968, while here at ANU, Headley Bull wrote of scholar practitioner relations in the following terms. Steps should be taken to break down some of the barriers in Australia which divide officials from non-officials, and which impoverish thinking about defence and foreign policy matters on both sides. Over four decades later, I'm very proud to have had the opportunity to be a part of such steps being taken through the work of the National Security College. Steps which in my view contribute positively to public policy processes, which are attuned to the new possibilities for scholar practitioner relations, and which complement the work of so many others in pursuing this university's historic mission and ongoing priorities. The National Security College has come a long way in five years, and it now has the capacity to achieve even more in the future. I'm sure that with sustained goodwill, strong partnerships, and productive hard work, it will do so. Thank you. Thanks, Michael. Could I ask Dr McCarthy to respond, please? Your Excellency, Vice-Chancellor, friends and colleagues, it's a real honour and privilege to play a role in farewelling Michael this afternoon, and even more so to thank him on behalf of the Commonwealth for all that he's done to take the National Security College from a bare-bones concept to the substantial institution that it is today. Over the past five years, the college has become an established and successful part of the academic life of the ANU, and the professional life of the national security community. So it's very easy to forget that when the joint venture between the Australian Government and ANU was announced in 2009, an institution of this kind, at least in the Australian context, was something entirely new. And as the Vice-Chancellor has said in his remarks, it's still very much one of a kind. No one should underestimate the challenge that Michael took on. He was asked to set up both an academic program with a distinctive national security approach and a distinctive national security focus, and the really new part, a dedicated executive and professional development program that would, in the words of the then Prime Minister, better prepare national security personnel for the increasingly complex challenges they face. And those complexities are, of course, all too evident, as we reflect on work being done across the Commonwealth, and not only by national security agencies, on everything from managing the risks posed by returning foreign fighters to developing options for a new submarine. As the college has grown and prospered, Michael has brought together national security theory and practice in ways that have enriched both. And if you'll allow me to indulge a central agency preoccupation for a moment, Michael has delivered significant value for taxpayers from the Commonwealth grant and agency contributions to the college. Michael has personally driven the success of this unique enterprise, harnessing his formidable intellect on display in the words we've just heard, to a tenacity which, as those who've ever been on the receiving end of it will know, has a certain galvanizing effect. A lot was expected of Michael when he accepted this role. But even so, the college has well and truly exceeded expectations. From the earliest days of the Executive and Professional Development Program, starting with a pilot SES Band 1 course in 2009, overseen by the then National Security Advisor Duncan Lewis, the feedback from those taking part has been overwhelmingly positive. With participant satisfaction ratings that the College Advisory Board members, myself included, academic and public servants alike would give their right arm for. That's due in very large part to Michael's ability to attract thought-provoking lectures and presentations from our most senior national security practitioners and some of our best academic minds. But it's also due to the all-important historical and institutional context that only someone with Michael's experience as a scholar, a prime ministerial advisor, a diplomat and a portfolio secretary can bring. So we thank you, Michael, for the energy, commitment and integrity that you've brought to the college as its founding Executive Director. We hope, I think we know, that your always thoughtful contribution to subjects of national importance won't end with your departure from the college. And we wish you and Jane all the very best for the future.