I'm delighted to be back this year at the National Student Leadership Forum.
I'd like to make some remarks this morning firstly about leadership, service and character.
I'd also like to speak about how the Government plans to move forward its engagement with young Australians on the future challenges that face our nation.
Each of you is in a formative stage of life.
A time of enquiry, discovery and learning.
A time when you start building professional skills.
And a time when you form values that will guide future decisions and future directions.
Perhaps the picture of the potter's wheel depicts this better than words.
Character is something like the clay on the potter's wheel, that starts out soft and pliable but slowly takes its shape and solidifies.
Each of you is at a stage in life when your character - the way you think and act - is still taking shape.
But as time passes, it becomes harder to change.
That's why it's important that you think consciously about your values now.
To answer three key questions: What do you believe?
Why do you believe it?
And what are you going to do about it?
You shouldn't put those questions off for some time in the future.
It's in this time of your life that you should determine your core beliefs and values.
Because in the years to come, the answers you have to those questions will shape the way you respond to the challenges and opportunities that life will bring.
One of the lessons of life, as of politics, is that you can't predict the future course of events and the opportunities that might come your way.
If we reflect on the lives of some of the greatest leaders of the past century we can see how the path to greatness often doesn't run in a straight line.
(And in passing I'd note that women are sure to be much better represented among the ranks of the great leaders of the new century than the one just gone.)
When John Curtin lost his seat in the election of December 1931 and found himself battling depression and alcoholism, he could have barely imagined that ten years later he'd be called upon to lead Australia through the Second World War, a time when our nation's very survival was at risk.
When Winston Churchill was languishing through his wilderness years in the 1930s, few could have imagined that the great task of leading Britain through it darkest hours would soon fall upon his shoulders.
And when Nelson Mandela was incarcerated in South Africa, for twenty years smashing limestone rocks on Robben Island, he could hardly dare imagine that at the age of 75 he would lead South Africa's peaceful transition to democracy and bury the despicable system of apartheid.
Life is unpredictable.
None of us know the challenges or opportunities the future might bring.
But what the lives of so many great leaders shows is this:
When opportunity the opportunity comes, you must be prepared.
And the best preparation isn't relentlessly seeking success or self-promotion.
It's not just about building up your social networks or creating a blizzard of publicity.
It is above all, about knowing what you believe, and why you believe it, and what you're going to do about it.
Having a moral compass as you navigate the rocks and shoals of life.
So often it is adversity that best tests us and prepares us for the future.
Think of Curtin, Churchill and Mandela.
All experienced extraordinary adversity - times of devastating discouragement.
The same is true for so many other great women and men.
So often you find that setbacks become the most important turning points in people's lives and careers.
I know this in a small way from my own experience.
When I first stood for Parliament in 1996, I was defeated in an election that saw Labor lose all but two seats in Queensland.
It was not an auspicious start in federal politics.
But it was for me one of life's greatest lessons.
I didn't walk away from public life.
Instead it became a time of learning.
Over the next two and a half years I learned much that I could not have learnt any other way.
About politics, about my local community and about never taking anyone or anything for granted.
So I would say to each of you - ambition is a good thing, but in pursuing your ambition you should expect setbacks.
One of my predecessors as Prime Minister once famously remarked that life wasn't meant to be easy.
It's important to expect the hard times, as well as the good times.
But how you handle defeat can matter more than how you handle success.
So be ready to make mistakes; to be let down; to face discouragement and sometimes, to wonder whether you aren't just beating your ahead against a brick wall.
Just like Nelson Mandela, smashing those rocks on Robben Island, day in and day out, for almost twenty years.
That experience formed in him the deep wisdom, the patience and the determination that made him able to help heal the wounds of apartheid and transform his nation's future.
I'd like also to reflect on one other person I regard as one of the greatest Australians in our lifetimes, the asbestos campaigner Bernie Banton, who died on November 27 last year.
An ordinary Australian whose courage, dignity and persistent fight against injustice made him one of the most extraordinary men of our times.
A man who inspired the whole nation - a little Aussie battler, staring down the might of a large corporation.
A man who kept fighting for the fair go for all those victims, despite the debilitating effects of asbestos-related diseases that in effect were slowly closing down his lungs.
Bernie faced more tragedy and hardship than perhaps any of us will ever know.
He'd lost one brother to asbestos, and another was battling disease.
He'd lost friends - by last year, less than 10 of his 135 work colleagues from the James Hardie's factory in the 1970s were still alive.
He'd lost his health and he knew asbestos would ultimately cost him his life.
But Bernie never lost hope.
He never lost his determination to fight for what was right.
And he never lost his decency and composure.
He was a man with a deep faith in God and a profound compassion for his fellow man.
But it was Bernie's response to setback after setback that made him such an inspiration and such a leader.
He didn't give up, turn inwards or become bitter, though he'd faced discouragements we could scarcely imagine.
He just fought on so that the James Hardie workers would be supported in the long years of declining health, and so their families weren't left with nothing after they were gone.
There was nothing flash about Bernie - not much polish and not too many fine words.
Yet when a generation of politicians will be forgotten, we will still remember Bernie Banton.
Because he inspired us.
Because of his character and his authenticity.
Because he was a true Australian hero.
Reflecting on Bernie Banton's life, I want to give each of you this challenge.
Don't think that the only pathways to leadership lie in the fields of politics, business, the media and other positions of prominence.
Look also to other pathways where you really can contribute and serve.
Consider, for example, the vocation of teaching.
Few people have as great an impact on a person's life as a great teacher.
It might lack the financial rewards and prestige of finance, law or management, but it is a truly great profession.
The international education research tells us that we need to recruit the best teachers into the classroom.
Because the quality of a school simply can't exceed the quality of its teachers.
Indeed, the quality of teaching is the single greatest influence within schools on student performance.
Each of you is here because you've been spotted as a person of exceptional talent and ability - and you should take pride in that.
But what matters most is how you use your talents - and specifically, how you use them to make a difference in the lives of those who haven't had the same opportunities as you.
The Government wants to open up more pathways for young Australians to use their talents to make a difference in Australia and abroad.
Last month I announced that the Government plans to create new accelerated pathways to bring talented Australians graduates into teaching roles in disadvantaged schools.
In the United States since 1990, a program along these lines called Teach for America has enjoyed remarkable success.
Highly talented graduates are given an accelerated pathway into teaching, placed into the most challenging school environments and paid at a higher rate.
They also receive mentoring and support from leading businesses and an option of employment after they complete their initial teaching assignment should they choose to leave.
These programs have given talented young graduates a taste for teaching - and many have made it their life profession as a result.
Research has shown just how effective the Teach for America graduates are - achieving an impact on student results three times as great as experienced teachers.
The program is so successful that it's now wildly over-subscribed, with 19,000 applicants competing for just 1,500 places each year.
In other words, Teach for America has made teaching “cool” again.
And that's what the Government wants to see happen in Australia.
Teaching might not appeal to you - so let me mention some other avenues of service.
The Youth Ambassadors for Development program creates opportunities for young Australians to share their skills and knowledge in developing countries and make a difference in some of the world's poorest nations.
More than 2,500 young Australians have now participated in that program, contributing to the great global challenge of making poverty history.
This month, 126 new youth ambassadors will leave Australia to take up placements in more than 20 countries.
There's a Climate Change Research Officer based in Bangkok.
A nurse trainer in Fiji.
A Water Supply Coordinator in Indonesia.
A Legal Aid Officer in Laos.
And a Sign Language Trainer in Samoa.
They're not easy jobs, but they make a difference in the lives of people in other nations who have nothing.
In Bac Lieu in Vietnam, one of our Ambassadors has developed a plan to create a safer and more reliable water supply and sanitation system for that city.
As we know, unsafe water supplies so often contribute to disease and infant mortality - so a project like that means saving lives.
Another Youth Ambassador in Solomon Islands recently piloted an Associate Diploma in Occupational Therapy at the Solomon Islands College of Higher Education.
That has opened up new career opportunities for young people in the Solomons, as well training people to help those with disabilities who don't currently have access to therapy.
There are many other opportunities for service in the ‘third sector' of community organisations both here and overseas - like the internships with Indigenous organisations around Australia offered to hundreds of students by the Aurora Project.
All these projects create opportunities to give something back to the community.
And it is only in giving that we can lead a complete life.
As St Francis of Assisi said -
“for it is in giving that we receive,
it is in pardoning that we are pardoned,
and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.”
Finally today I would like to make some broader remarks about how the Government intends to move forward with our engagement with young Australians.
The Government I lead believes in a strong engagement with the nation's youth.
That is why we held the Youth 2020 Summit here in Parliament House - indeed in this room - earlier this year.
One of the proposals that came out of that Summit was to develop an ongoing dialogue between young Australians and the Government, creating new ways for youth to engage with government to work to tackle common challenges together.
The Government has allocated $8 million in the Budget for this purpose and I'm pleased to announce today that on October 2nd the Australian Youth Forum will be launched by Kate Ellis, the Minister for Youth.
The Forum will provide a framework for engagement across all areas of government policy.
The Government will also be commissioning the new Office for Youth to compile a new report on the State of Australia's Young People - a report that will help us to identify future priorities for Government policy, and in particular, where young Australians are needing more support.
Further, the Minister for Youth will be commissioning work on what has been identified in a major national survey as the top concerns of Australian youth (1) - healthy body image.
We all experience the relentless daily media bombardment of images that distort the expectations that many young women and men have relating to their body image.
We are realistic about the limitations on a government's ability to tackle such a pervasive problem.
But we recognise the negative impact it has on the confidence and esteem of so many young Australians.
And working with young Australians, we want to identify positive steps we can take to address this difficult problem.
Again I'd like to congratulate each one of you for being selected to participate in this year's forum.
It isn't easy to get the time to stand back and reflect upon the big questions of life, but this is one such opportunity.
I hope that some of you can look back on this weekend in twenty years' time and reflect on it as a time that helped you establish your bearings and how to apply them to the benefit of others.
That is what leadership is about - it begins with service.
Effective leadership serves people first.
And it is the pathway to a deeply fulfilling life.
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1. Mission Australia's National Survey of Young Australians 2007 covering 29,000 respondents