Chief Executive’s message to UoW graduates

Margaret Bennett delivered the Occasional Address to around 300 people at Bay Pavilions in Batemans Bay on Tuesday, part of the Graduation Ceremony for 22 students from the Eurobodalla.

As you'd expect, Marg extended a special invitation to the 13 nursing graduates to "come and work with Southern."

Thirty-nine graduates from the Bega campus followed the next day, 29 of them with a Bachelor of Nursing.

Marg's role at the Batemans Bay graduation reflects the strong partnership Southern has with the University of Wollongong and the impact their graduates have on our health service and community.

Members of the Faculty of Science, Medicine, and Health made mention of the increasing interest they are seeing from prospective students in response to the growing momentum around the new Eurobodalla Regional Hospital, which opens in early 2027.

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In her speech, Marg reflected on her 52 year career in health, and the lessons she has learnt along the way:

Chancellor, members of the University, graduates, distinguished guests, proud families and friends.

I acknowledge with respect the traditional owners of the land we are meeting on here today, the Walbunja people of the broader Yuin nation, and I pay respects to Elders past, present and emerging.

I want to start by congratulating you all. Today is a moment of arrival. You have completed something demanding, something meaningful, something that perhaps once existed only as a hope.

To reach this day, you have managed late nights, deadlines, doubt, maybe some desperation - and certainly much discovery.

But while today marks an ending, it matters most because it is also a beginning, and I am sure you are all very conscious of that.

You are graduating at a time when the world feels fast and uncertain. Technology is rewriting industries, and societies are questioning old assumptions. I read the other day that careers are no longer ladders but landscapes. And many of the problems you will face on that journey do not yet have clear names - let alone clear solutions.

None of this is a reason for fear.

It is a reason for purpose - because education was never meant to give us all the answers. It’s meant to shape how we respond when answers are not obvious. And education, in its various forms, needs to be a lifelong commitment for us all to be the best we can be.

It’s a great privilege to be asked to deliver the Occasional Address today. I stand before you as someone who has had/is still having! a fabulous career in healthcare that has extended for the last 50 plus years, working across a range of remote, third world, regional and metro settings….in three states and overseas.

I’ve had the privilege of working with and learning from Aboriginal people, delivered babies in outback creek beds, worked for the RFDS, coordinated major emergency responses, led an aid abroad program in the Kathmandu Valley, and as a Chief Executive, I’ve now had many years of being responsible for large very complex organisations, for the delivery of safe patient care, for workforce culture and safety, and for community engagement, whilst balancing budgets that never stretch as far as you need them to in an environment where negotiating rapid change is a constant reality.

Along the way, I have been supported by many and various inspirational people for whom I will be forever grateful, and who I try to emulate every day by supporting and clearing the way for my fabulous people to shine.

I thought that perhaps the best I could do today to hopefully be useful to you is to openly and frankly share some of what I absolutely know to be true - so effectively reflections from my long and winding journey to date.

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Number 1 of 10:

1. You do not need to have your entire life figured out to move forward with intention. What you need is direction - not certainty. Courage - not perfection. Curiosity - not fear.
2. In the years ahead, you will be tempted to believe that success is a straight line. It is not - it’s squiggly at best. Most meaningful lives are built through detours, pauses, and reinvention. Some of my detours have led to my greatest discoveries. You may start in one field and end in another. As an outback critical care nurse and midwife in WA, I certainly never imagined that I would become a Chief Executive in both Victoria and NSW. Certainly, my curiosity has required me to find buckets of courage. Curiosity and courage are very close cousins!
3. Surround yourself with good people - inspiration is never far away. Take time to know people’s stories. Connect with good mentors and become a good mentor early in your career.
4. Take time to reflect, read widely - be interested and interesting, and truly focus on your wellbeing.
5. You may succeed quickly, or slowly, or in ways you did not expect. You may fail - and then discover that failure taught you something no success ever could. Failure is part of life - it hurts,  but absorb the pain and the learnings.
6. Focus on building your reserves of grit and grace.
7. Across your different courses - whatever you studied, you were not only learning what to think, but how to think. How to question. How to collaborate. How to adapt. How to begin again when something doesn’t work - and that skill - the ability to learn, unlearn, and relearn - will matter more than any single qualification you hold.
8. Ask better questions than those before you. Question assumptions that no longer serve community/society/humanity. Use your education not just to make a living, but to make a difference. Whatever your field, the world does not need more credentials—it needs more character. The privilege of making a difference is the magic that makes life worthwhile.
9. Know and live your true north - your values, your integrity, your care and kindness, your commitment to doing the right thing when no one is watching is what defines you. Be proud of you but let your actions speak for you.
10. And remember this - the measure of your impact will not be found only in titles or income or applause. It will be found in the lives you improve, the problems you help solve, and the standards you refuse to lower. Always remember that the standard you walk past is the standard you accept.

Some of you will go on to build companies. Some will serve communities. Some will teach, heal, design, invent, or create. Some will do work that never makes headlines, but quietly makes the world better.

All of that matters.

As you step forward, you will carry more than knowledge from this university. You carry resilience. You carry discipline. You carry the memory of times you thought, “I can’t do this,” and then did it anyway.

When the road ahead feels uncertain - and it will - remember this day. Remember that you have already overcome challenges you once thought impossible. Let that memory become confidence.

Graduates, the future does not belong to those who wait for perfect conditions. It belongs to those who move forward with courage, compassion, care, kindness and a willingness to learn.

My caring hope for you all is that you build lives of meaning, not just momentum, that you may sometimes at least, choose contribution over comfort, and may you never forget that the world you are entering is not fixed - it is waiting to be shaped.

Step into it boldly.

My warmest congratulations and every good wish to you.

Thank you.

More information about studying at the University of Wollongong HERE.