February 2025 Newsletter

Dear Members and Friends,

A very happy new year to you all and Happy Australia Day for last week!

The Australia Day Gala at the stunning Peninsula Hotel on Saturday 25 January was a tremendous success. Our CEO Louise Mulley took charge of organising an extravaganza in collaboration with the Australia Foundation Trust and the Australia-UK Chamber of Commerce with the brilliant help of Kate Bifield-Harraldson, Annabelle Molina and Marina Cleveland.

We presented the evening as a Celebration of Australia and all Australians and packed the Ballroom with 413 Australians and friends of Australia who enjoyed spectacular Australian food, wine and entertainment. The food was curated by executive guest chef Prue Freeman and her team from Daisy Green who worked for several months with the Peninsula's catering teams for a stunning result. Australia's oldest family-owned winery, Yalumba, sponsored the magnificent wines throughout the night and Australian-owned and British-made MarGin provided cocktails on arrival. His Excellency, the Hon. Stephen Smith, High Commissioner, made the opening remarks and read out a letter from Australian Prime Minister, the Hon. Anthony Albanese. And there was dancing!

Congratulations to Young Australian of the Year in the UK, Natasha Porter OBE, for her tireless work with Unlocked Graduates and to Honorary Australian of the Year, the legendary Bill Bailey, who played the piano and wowed the crowd with a rousing rendition of I Still Call Australia Home, accompanied by a group of emerging Australian-born, London based performers - Matt Herbert, Sarah Morrison, Naarah and Ash Roussety. The big award - Australian of the Year in the UK 2025 - was presented to Marc Newson CBE, one of the greatest industrial designers of our generation. Now based in London, Sydney-born Marc's incredible contribution to the world of design spans the Apple Watch and iPhone, jets, cars, yachts and a range of luxury goods as well as many of the items we use every day. Please scroll down for some photos of the night.

Of course, none of this would have been possible without our generous corporate sponsors: Naming Sponsor NAB; Award Sponsors Qantas and BAE Systems; and all our Gold sponsors, all of whom are significant supporters of the Australian-British relationship - Anglo American, ANZ, Arup, BHP, BMD, BUPA, Captain's Choice, CT Group, Deltroit, EY, Hilton Food Group, Macquarie, Rio Tinto, RM Williams, Sia Partners, Worley and Yalumba.

We ended 2024 on a high with our sublime Christmas Carols at St Mary-le-Bow church. We were joined by our friends from the Australian Women's Club and the church was packed. We have some plans afoot in relation to our annual carols service and more information will be released in due course. For now, please save the date of 4 December 2025 for a new and very exciting initiative which is in planning...

We have a full programme of interesting and varied events in our schedule for 2025 and further details will be released in the coming months. You may have seen our Save the Date for our always popular International Women's Day event to be held in conjunction with the team at the Australian High Commission on Wednesday 5 March, 6-8pm. Tickets will be released this week so please keep an eye on your inboxes!

Please also save the date of Wednesday 30 April for an event at the In and Out Club with the Hon. Dr Brendan Nelson AO to mark ANZAC Day. Brendan has a distinguished Parliamentary, diplomatic and business career and is an exceptional speaker. This event will be very popular so early booking is advised. And the first half of the year would not be complete without our Summer Party on 11 June. Please mark these dates in your diaries!

Last week I was fortunate to attend the book launch of "We Should Be So Lucky" written by my friend Andrew Low, Chair of the Australian British Chamber of Commerce and Chair of the Australian organisation, Advance. The title of the book is, obviously, a play on Donald Horne’s “The Lucky Country”, the classic indictment of Australia in the 1960s. Australia has moved a long way from those days and Andrew's book is a refreshing, modern and timely insight into what really makes Australia special, those things that underpin Australia’s success and what challenges the continuity of that success. It is an extremely interesting read. Andrew has generously donated TWO SIGNED COPIES to give away to two lucky B-AS Members this month. To become a Member of the B-AS and to support the work we do, please click here. Please scroll down for entry details. For those of you not lucky enough to win this time, copies of Andrew's book can be purchased here.

Watch this space for a new event we are developing entitled “The Great Debate”, the first one of which will see an expert panel in a moderated discussion challenging the notion that “Australia is the Lucky Country”. And we will be bringing you the next in our First Eight series, this time looking at one of the most important and remarkable of our first eight Prime Ministers, Billy Hughes. We have a new format for this event as we add a contemporary flavour to this important part of our history.

I would like to take this opportunity to welcome Samantha Cohen CVO OBE to our B-AS Board. Many of you already know Samantha who has had a distinguished career in the UK working for many years for HM Queen Elizabeth II and latterly in senior leadership roles in government and industry. Samantha was also the B-AS 50th anniversary recipient of our B-AS Award for supporting and enhancing the British-Australian relationship.

As you know, Louise and I spend a lot of time supporting the many UK based organisations with Australian interests. One of the many people we enjoy working with is the wonderful Lizzy Crotty, the UK head of the Australian Wildlife Conservancy (a B-AS Charity Member). Lizzy and her dynamic team brought us last year's hugely successful "Koala Gala" in support of the Australian Wildlife Conservancy and they are back again with the Koala Gala 2025 which will be held on Thursday 3 April at the magnificent Merchant Taylors' Hall in London. The Koala Gala team has kindly extended an invitation to all B-AS supporters to purchase tickets for what will be a fun filled black tie extravaganza with drinks, dinner and dancing while supporting the vital work of the AWC! And all funds raised will be matched by the Big Give campaign. To book, please click here. And you’ll need to be quick – even I missed out on a ticket last year, but not this time! It's already nearly sold out. Hopefully I’ll see many of you there.

Many of you know that I also Chair the Australian Chamber Orchestra UK Board. It is my great pleasure to announce that the Australian Chamber Orchestra celebrates its 50th Anniversary Season this year. As part of the festivities, the ACO is returning to London and is performing at the Barbican on Friday 21 March. The ACO will be joined by pianist Alexander Melnikov for an exciting concert programme featuring work by Bach and Shostakovich. I would be delighted if you would join me there. Tickets for this special concert are available to purchase here.

We were delighted that our President, Lord Hague of Richmond, was elected as the new Chancellor of the University of Oxford. Lord Hague will be formally inaugurated shortly and serve for a term of 10 years. He becomes the 160th recorded Chancellor in the university's history, a role that dates back 800 years. On your behalf, I wrote to Lord Hague late last year to pass on our congratulations which he acknowledged in a kind return letter, a copy of which can be seen below. I personally appreciate Lord Hague's support for the B-AS and our objectives. I know you appreciate and enjoy hearing from him and talking to him at our annual President's Reception which will be held again later this year.

As an aside, I’m heading to Australia in a couple of days to meet my brand-new grandson! While I am in Australia, I hope to find time to visit the Australian War Memorial in Canberra. The Hon. Dr Brendan Nelson AO (see above) was the Director of the War Memorial for seven years during a time of great modernisation, making it contemporary and relevant to post-war generations. The current director is Matt Anderson PSM who many of you will remember was Deputy High Commissioner here from 2016-2020.

Looking forward to seeing many of you at our International Women's Day event on 5 March.

Best wishes

Damian Walsh

Chair