 And I want to do ophthalmology since 1997, my first year of medical school. It seemed like a great job, nothing disgusting, pretty reasonable hours, very few emergencies, you get to sit down while you operate, and a comfortable lifestyle. But it was, of course, seemed impossible, not only because it was highly competitive, but because it's never been done by an Indigenous person before in Australia. Hi everybody, my name is Dr Chris Rovaker, and I'm an alumnus of the University of New Castle. I began my long association with the University back in 1997, when I moved from Brisbane as a school leaver down to New Castle to begin the Bachelor of Medicine degree. At the time I was one of very, very few Indigenous medical students in the country, and would soon be one of very few Indigenous doctors in the now quite early days when the universities and medical schools began graduating medical students of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander heritage from their courses. I eventually graduated in ophthalmology and I became the country's first Indigenous ophthalmologist, which in many respects was always seemed like the impossible dream. I always wanted to be an ophthalmologist, as I said, since first year of medicine, but it was such a competitive field in medicine, and I had no relatives and I didn't know anybody. And as an Indigenous doctor, we, for most of my medical life, you know, we were viewed either with suspicion or with the degree of disbelief that our Indigenous person couldn't possibly do medicine. I'm often asked about the state of Indigenous health in Australia, and the first part of my answer is that rather than go from a deficit base, I like to go from a straight space. And in telling my story, I like to tell a story of achievement and success. I think we're all aware of the health disparities between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australia. They are deniable in their long term, and they're tragic and not to be forgotten or over shadowed or discounted. But I think what's often overlooked are the good news stories, and how far we've come in such a short period of time, particularly since the 67 referendum, which was a critical moment in Australia's history. It's just over 50 years ago when Indigenous Australians achieved citizenship, and in many, many fields Aboriginal and Torres Islander peoples in the country have achieved very few other groups in such a short period of time. We now have Indigenous QCs, barristers. We have Indigenous leaders in business across almost all university degrees. We've had our first Indigenous Rhodes Scholar recently accepted into Oxford. We have Indigenous individuals playing at the highest levels in sports, and an increasing number of politicians. And of course, I've mentioned our success in medicine, and me being the first Indigenous ophthalmologist, but we've also recently graduated our first dermatologist. We now have a group of Indigenous surgeons, and almost all of the non-JP colleges, medical colleges in Australia, now either have their first fellow or have registrars within the system who will be fellows in the coming years. We have over four, I think it's around 150, 400 medical students coming through the system now as well. I mean, these are phenomenal numbers considering that it's just over 50 years ago that the referendum was passed to give us citizenship. And that's the strength base of the Indigenous story. In the context of Indigenous health in Australia, and specifically in the context of AIDA, and my role as president of AIDA, we have continued to work very, very hard both within and without the system to achieve improvements and change in systems. Our very recent and long-term project that is ongoing is the establishment of a set of parameters that not only define cultural safety, but guarantee cultural safety. That includes training in cultural safety with the Australian Indigenous Public Association and embedding it in the standards within ARPA that regulates the doctors of Australia and across the other professions within ARPA as well, but specifically in the context of AIDA within medicine. We have had a success during the COVID crisis of calling out instances of interpersonal, as well as institutionalised racism, and bringing that to the attention of ARPA, the medical colleges and relevant state jurisdictions. And appropriate responses have been made to that by those organisations and departments to ensure the safety of not only Indigenous doctors, but Indigenous patients as well. What we said for a very, very long time in Indigenous health is if you can do it right for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, then you in fact do it right for everybody. Because the principles involved in delivering quality and safe healthcare for Indigenous peoples are the same for all peoples, but because of the historical changes in many respects are more difficult to deliver for Indigenous peoples. In terms of COVID-19 response, that's something also that Aboriginal Australia can be very, very proud of. We've been ahead of the game for almost the whole crisis. Mainstream Australia has trailed Indigenous Australia's response. We had lockdowns before Mainstream Australia had lockdowns. We were talking about the risks to our people and ensuring that we had the resources to get through the crisis long before Mainstream Australia and the Australian government was doing that. And I suspect perhaps even before they were thinking about it as being a potential crisis. I wrote recently in a mainstream newspaper about Indigenous Australia's long history with pandemics, beginning with thepox virus soon after the arrival of the first fleet and the origins of where thepox virus came from have been debated for a long time and they're very serious, but there's no doubt that there was an epidemic there which didn't just occur in Sydney Basin. It spread across the entire continent from Indigenous nation to Indigenous nation along our highways and trade routes and impacted probably all Indigenous nations and severely and led to catastrophic social and economic collapse for those peoples. Later on, of course, we had the Spanish Flu and then more recently there was the Swine Flu that also went through Indigenous communities and affected in some areas up to 10% of those communities. So we have a long history of dealing with these pandemics and along memory of those pandemics as well as an awareness that because of our grade of burden of illness, including chronic diseases and issues of overcrowding and social disadvantage that we are a higher risk of poor outcomes, general outcomes, issues around morbidity, but also issues around mortality, so higher death rates and the COVID virus was treated very, very seriously when it was identified. So it's the social determinants of health that increase the risk of COVID-19 for Indigenous peoples, as well as the higher general burden of illness and particularly chronic diseases, low pressure, heart disease, diabetes being the big three. We've responded very well and are very, very proud of the response within Indigenous Australia. The Peak bodies have worked closely together and ADA has been a major part of the task force made up of Peak bodies in that response. We've been very successful in achieving no infections to date in rural or remote communities and it's around 56 at the last count Indigenous Australians having COVID-19. In terms of mitigating risk for COVID-19, as I've said, the Peak bodies have been working very closely together for a long time. We've built very strong connections and connections we can be very proud of with state and federal governments as well as our colleagues in the medical colleges, in the allied health space, in the nursing space and government task forces. We have very strong connections with the Australian Medical Association and their state affiliates. These strategies will not only ensure the improvement of the state of Indigenous health through internal advocacy, it will also ensure the continued growth of the numbers of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander doctors until we at least reach parity of 3,000 doctors in the country. That's a population parity of medical doctors. But also, our strategies will help us embed an understanding of why Indigenous health is important and embed a more culturally safe system for all Australians by ensuring it's culturally safe for Indigenous Australians. As I said earlier, if you do it right for Indigenous people in this country, you do it right for everybody because getting it right for Indigenous people is probably the hardest of major population groups in Australia. They're my thoughts and my musings around my own journey, not only through medicine, but my long association with the University of Newcastle. I was very proud to receive the Alumni Excellence Award last year. In fact, as I was at the award ceremony, it was a breakfast ceremony. I was looking through previous recipients and I noted that my cousin was a recipient a number of years before for the International Alumni Award. He's now the Chairman of Peabody Coal, Chairman and CEO of Peabody Coal. And so I saw that in there and then the next thing I knew, my name was announced as the winner. So I'm very, very proud of that. I'm very, very proud, as I said at my association with Newcastle and what Newcastle achieved. So thank you, Newcastle, again, for the opportunity to be involved in the life of the university and campus life. Thank you for the opportunity of being to be involved with the alumni. And although I live a long way away on the Sunshine Coast, my alma mater is never far from my thoughts. So I wish everybody well. Thank you again. Thank you for listening. I hope there's been something in what I've said that is of use and my kindest regards to all. Thank you very much.