Speeches
Thursday, 20 November 2025
Morning tea for Indigenous Australian Engineering School
Rod and I warmly welcome you all to Government House.
The expansion of the Engineering Aid Australia into South Australia through its new partnership with Flinders University and Tonkin marks a milestone in the educational history of our State: the first Indigenous Australian Engineering School on Kaurna Country.
We hope you, the students, have had an interesting four days and undertaken activities that have shown you what is possible by applying science, engineering, technology, and maths to shaping our world.
Wearing his hat as a physicist and former maths and science teacher, Rod is particularly interested in encouraging young people to explore this field.
I too hope young people will be inspired to consider studying the sciences, not only because they are intrinsically interesting and intellectually stimulating, but they also hold the key to solving many of the challenges facing the world today, challenges that your generation will need to be involved in addressing.
Challenges like how we manage the land; how we reach out and explore space; how we ensure we have clean energy and address climate change; how we harness robotics; how we use technology to advance health and medical treatments; and many more.
As Rod and I travel the State, we are heartened by the number of young people who want to make a difference to their communities. Many of them are seeing STEM programs as a way to do so.
We have also been privileged to meet many Aboriginal people who are sharing their knowledge in land management and caring for the environment, knowledge honed and developed over tens of thousands of years as its custodians.
After all, when reflecting on our country’s evolution, Aboriginal people were the first astronomers and the first caretakers of this land.
There is much that we can learn from each other as we forge a future together and embrace the deep knowledge of our First Australians.
Rod and I congratulate the young people here today for exploring the possibility of a science and engineering career. You join those who have already taken this pathway, including the 130 Indigenous engineers and engineering students nationwide who have gone through this program
In South Australia we have a bright future in the defence, science, health, and technology sectors.
We hope you can see yourselves as part of it. From here we hope you all take every opportunity to learn, connect and grow as future leaders in this field.
I thank Engineering Aid Australia for your vision and Flinders University for developing the program.
Also thank you to the industry companies and representatives for taking part. You are investing in the future.
Rod and I wish the students well for the future. Congratulations in being part of the program and we and look forward to hearing from you about your experiences.