E&OE TRANSCRIPT
PROFESSOR KRISTY MUIR, CEO, PAUL RAMSAY FOUNDATION: This is your hometown Amanda and it's a privilege to be with you today and to be talking to you because this is also your community. So welcome. Please join me in welcoming Amanda Rishworth.
AMANDA RISHWORTH, MINISTER FOR SOCIAL SERVICES: Thank you.
KRISTY MUIR: One of the things I want to get to is the Investment Dialogue for Australia's Children, but first I would love to talk about leadership a little bit. Many people may have read many things you've done. Some people will know you quite well in the room, others may have seen you releasing various things that don't know you well personally. This whole conference is about shifting perspectives, shifting practice and one of the things I love about leadership is it is all about how we shift perspective and practice. There is a famous quote, know the seven-year-old and you know the adult. I love this idea of what was a seven-year-old like, and how do they turn into a leader for social good. Can you tell us a bit about who was Amanda at seven and how does she now show up in your leadership work?
AMANDA RISHWORTH: Well, thank you very much. It’s really wonderful to welcome you all to Adelaide. I was born at Flinders Medical Centre which is the major hospital that actually births babies in my electorate. So I've always been here on Kaurna country and grown up on Kaurna country, but as a seven-year-old, I think there are a couple of things that I remember. I found school, and every extracurricular activity I did, very social. So it was about talking with people, it was about connecting with people. I think my swimming instructor used to say that I could talk underwater with a mouthful of marbles. So for me, I think that was really a symptom of wanting to connect with people, wanting to understand people, wanting to create groups and I think that's very much been my area of leadership. You know bringing people together, bringing people along, has always been something really important to me. But it is also about an exchange of dialogue, an exchange of views, of connection. That was always something that turned up in my report cards – she needs to spend less time socialising and more time concentrating on work. But for me, that was very much part of who I was, and still to this day, I want to connect with people, talk with people. The other element, I think from very early on, I knew that the job I wanted to do was going to be in a helping profession. I remember I said to my mum that I wanted to be a nurse. She rightly challenged me and said, what other jobs would you like to do? Would you like to work in the bank or be a lawyer? But I didn’t want to do that. From very early on, I remember wanting to be in a helping profession. It changed a few times as I got older, but ultimately I did end up becoming qualified to be a psychologist. Now, a lot of people do wonder how that at all accords to being a politician, but it is absolutely a similar job. It is about, maybe not everyone agrees, but from my perspective, it is about changing individuals’ lives. That's what I wanted, that's what drove me to be in a helping profession and that's how I see the vehicle of politics. Instead of individuals, you can hopefully transform whole communities, even whole countries. I do use a few of my psychology skills in Parliament House although I’m not registered psychologist, so I don't check anyone! But yes, from a very early age, I wanted to have purpose in a job, wanted to be helping as well. So those are two elements that have always driven me.
KRISTY MUIR: It’s amazing looking back at school reports, if you're lucky enough to have parents that kept them, what they actually tell you about you personally, I'm sure the psychologist in there is observing that as well, and I'm glad that no parliamentarians are lining up at your door for a clinical session. I'm also driven by purpose and that theme about whatever the vehicle is, the purpose stays consistent. And similarly, your messaging around the dialogue piece that you're embracing, I know from conversations you previously had, and a whole lot of your work, including recent investments, but also past work in terms of your ministerial role, and as an MP in your community, you've always been really driven by community based conversations. So those dialogues and place-based work, did that emerge out of your purpose, or was that something that's always been instilled in you? Where did the drive for listening to and investing in people in communities come from?
AMANDA RISHWORTH: I was really lucky my grandmother really instilled the importance of volunteering into me, ultimately volunteering for small organisations. For me, that was the first sense of how important it is to contribute to community. I often tell this story. She did Meals on Wheels for, I think she got her 40-year badge, she did it all the way up until, effectively, she needed Meals on Wheels herself. So that was literally my introduction to community and contributing to community. But I think as I became an MP, and I've been an MP for a little while – I've been in Parliament now for 17-years, and one of the things that over that time that I've noticed is there are people in organisations and departments, and they do come and go because they're doing jobs. But the history and the knowledge is often held in communities about what has worked, what has not worked. Where people have come in and tried things. So for me, just being really embedded in so many areas of my community, that history and understanding and knowledge is something that we just can't dismiss. I think over time, I've seen that. The second point is community leaders – well people generally – know what they need. I spend a lot of time at shopping centres talking with people at street corner meetings, which is what we call them in South Australia. People raise issues with me, but many people also come with really clever solutions, and for me that has been something that I've taken on board for a very long time. That a lot of people come to me with really simple yet really clever solutions. They might not be experts in the field, they might not be professors recognised by universities, but that lived experience is so critical to the solution. So that means some of the things that I've certainly learned over time, working as an MP but also before, comes from that closeness to the community. I mean, that's something I think, going back to my grandmother's volunteering experience, being really close to community, being connected to community, being part of the community, I think that has driven my attitude towards embracing place-based work and community impact work as well.
KRISTY MUIR: Did you do the deliveries with your grandmother?
AMANDA RISHWORTH: No, I didn’t. I was always very jealous, because I used to want to go back to her house, but she had Meals on Wheels on Tuesday, every second Thursday she volunteered at Flinders Medical Centre, she had Probus on Friday, Morning Melodies on Wednesday. I missed out. What about me? I was wondering where do I fit into this? But it's only as I got older and started volunteering myself that I realised it had left an impression on me that became ingrained.
KRISTY MUIR: I love the maternal lineage flowing down to you. And I also had a grandmother who instilled my social purpose, values and work today, super important. I heard a quote from you recently that was about listening, and I think the lovely thing about Meals on Wheels is, you know, you turn up someone's door and you're listening to them. Your example about hearing from people that know what they need in community and shopping centres, I heard a quote from you recently that was ‘we're really working to ensure that the voices of not only those parents, but also children at the heart of our strategy, and that a child's perspective is embedded.” I think it's a really important point, because so often it's hard to get the lens of the child. Can you talk a bit more about that?
AMANDA RISHWORTH: When we are looking at developing policies, we look at evidence, which is incredibly important. But one of the things I've noticed is whether it's programs or policy, if we haven't got the perspective of the people that the policy is designed for, no matter how good or effective we think it is, they won't take it up. They won't be part of it.
KRISTY MUIR: We are at the Philanthropy Australia Conference, so I do want to talk about the relationship between philanthropy and government and the Investment Dialogue for Australia's Children. Many people have been involved in this room and are partnering around this collaboration. We want to work differently; we want to shift practice. What does working differently mean to you, and what would success look like? I mean, I'm so interested in how you want to see philanthropy change and then how we might want to work together on this?
AMANDA RISHWORTH: I think working together is actually having a shared goal, and that is different from just both having aligned goals. I think that it is a subtle difference, but it is a real difference. How do we share the goals, the vision of what we want to achieve? I think that's the first point. But I think the other really big piece of working differently is, as I said before, actually sharing that purpose, that vision, with community, and not just consulting. I think we do a lot of consulting, and I think that's good, but it is about actually sharing decision making. There's been a lot of work done with First Nations communities. We've still got work to do, but in that shared decision making with community I think there is a lot to be learned from and ways that we can work differently. So, I think having all three, philanthropy and the government, but also community. I think the other element that is really about working differently and a big challenge for philanthropy and government is around risk and taking risks. That's a challenge. I've said this numerous times, if money isn’t well spent from a government perspective, we end up on the front page of the newspaper. There is a need to manage, how do we share power and hand over power to community and how do we manage that risk? That's a challenge for everyone, but it's something I think we need to work towards. And then it is about silos and you hear this in government, but you hear it in philanthropy as well, different parts of an organisation breaking down silos. It's a big challenge government has to work towards, and it does mean taking a less programmatic response and potentially a more outcomes focused response. Now that can scare some people around funding models, but I think that is a challenge that we need to work towards, how do we build something that really does break down those silos. If it was easy, it would have been done yesterday. It is still a challenge, but they are some of the ways that we do need to work differently. But it is coming back to that shared mission and shared understanding, I think, and all buying into it.
KRISTY MUIR: There's so much in that, and we're going to have to wrap things up in a minute because I know you have further meetings. I think the piece around that collaboration, the whole point of collaboration is about outcomes for kids, families and communities, so I love that it's a trilogy, not a dual partnership. I wonder if I can finish on a legacy question. It gets asked a lot, and you're probably rolling your eyes at this, because I hate when someone asks me. I actually prefer the question of, what kind of ancestor do you want to be to? What kind of legacy do you want to leave? But if there's something you want to share with your audience, either what legacy do you want to leave, or what kind of ancestor you want to be remembered as? What would you give us?
AMANDA RISHWORTH: That’s a hard one for me, but ultimately, we've got a number of government strategies that we've worked towards to end violence against women and children and to have every child thriving in Australia, meeting their potential, thriving children, thriving families, thriving community, that’s what I'm working towards is those goals. That's what I would like to lead now. I know it'll never be perfect, but I'm very outcomes focused. I want to make a difference, but in doing that, I think the journey is important as well. I would like to leave much more collaborative relationships in place, whether that’s government and communities, whether that’s different not-for-profits and government, whether that’s philanthropy and government. I would like to leave a lot less of the us versus them and make it much more about how we do it together. So I think outcomes are important, but also the journey.
KRISTY MUIR: There are many of us in the room with you on how do we together create a society where all kids and families and communities thrive. I think that's entirely a great aspiration, and we're with you on the focus for that. I know your time is precious, and we didn't have long with you this morning, but we heard about Amanda the swimmer. I can imagine you at seven with your goggles, the volunteering grandmother that you know probably loved you enormously and your commitment to community really shines through. Thank you for all you contribute as a politician, thank you for your commitment to the Investment Dialogue for Australia's Children. It's a big, ambitious goal. We talked yesterday about moonshot philanthropy, and I think your point about how philanthropy actually take risks has been a real theme running through this conference. So I do want to say thank you for your ongoing partnership.
AMANDA RISHWORTH: Thank you.