Acceptance Speech

Allow me to begin this address by expressing my sincere gratitude to Macquarie University for bestowing such an honour upon me. It represents a milestone in the history of this land now known as Australia, for it recognizes, belated though it be, the value of a most ancient earth culture to modern society for us who came late to 'civilization', missing the gap of centuries. When you came we admired and marvelled, but with foreboding. We had so little, but we had happiness, each day was a holiday. For we were people before we were citizens, people before we were ratepayers, tenants, customers, employees, parishioners.