It was my pleasure to attend the annual Parents’ and Friends’ Association’s Ruth Langley luncheon last Friday. It was wonderful to gather as a community and have the opportunity to reconnect.  

In my welcome at the lunch, I shared that the last two years have seen the most significant educational reform I have ever seen due to the pandemic. It was challenging for all of us, particularly our young people. I am a big believer that through challenge and disruption comes opportunities.  

I am so proud of the St Catherine’s community for supporting each other and our students in all their achievements, particularly our amazing VCE academic results in 2021. It reflects our resilience, agency, and the innovative approaches of our teachers.  

It is lovely to start 2022 on campus and teaching students face-to-face, connecting with them again, seeing our community join together at School functions and our Alumnae at reunions. We are so pleased to see all co-curricular activities back – our camps, sports, and the Arts. We look forward to it continuing with great optimism. 

It was lovely to have Ms Mimi Kwa, current St Catherine’s parent, as emcee for the Luncheon once again this year. It was wonderful to be entertained by Charlotte Aston our 2022 Drama Captain, who sang the most beautiful rendition of Hallelujah arranged by K.D. Lang. The highlight of the Luncheon this year was our guest speaker the Hon. Julie Bishop who gave the keynote address through a conversational question and answer session with Ms Fiona Menzies (‘87), Old Girl and past parent of Charlotte (’13) and Alice (‘20). Fiona is also a member of St Catherine’s Foundation Board and Community Engagement Committee. 

It is challenging to list all Ms Bishop’s achievements and contributions as there are so many. Her contribution to women in leadership, both in law and politics is significant, and her address allowed the audience to understand her career commencing as a lawyer and then in public office as Australia’s Minister for Foreign Affairs from 2013 until her resignation in 2018.  

She was the first female to hold the role, as well as the first female Deputy Leader of the Liberal Party, serving for 11 years. In her political career, spanning over 20 years, she also served as Minister for Education, Science and Training, Minister for Women’s Issues and Minister for Ageing. Currently, she is the Chancellor of ANU and in 2021, she was awarded the Kissinger Fellowship at the McCain Institute of International Leadership at Arizona State University and appointed by the UK Government to the G7 Gender Equality Advisory Council (GEAC). She has also established a boutique advisory firm, Julie Bishop and Partners. 

The Hon. Julie Bishop mesmerised the audience with her eloquent responses, her stories of political life, the challenges of climbing the ranks as a female and forging unfamiliar territory for all women in vocations that have been traditionally male.  

Julie Bishop has an impact on people, particularly young women, and none more so than our 2019 School Co-Captain Miss Georgina Cottrill (‘19). I reached out to Georgie and asked her to write a reflection on the impact that Julie Bishop has had on her: 

“I was exposed from an early age to the world of politics through watching the 7.00pm news. Through this exposure I became particularly interested in Australia’s relationship with the rest of the world and its foreign affairs. However, it really was not until 2013, when the Hon. Julie Bishop was appointed Australia’s first female Foreign Affairs Minister that I realised this could be an occupation for someone like me.  

Watching then Minister Bishop completely reshape and modernise Australia’s foreign affairs outlook had a profound effect on me and so many others. We saw Ms Bishop push for, and succeed in, advocating for human rights by passing a UN Security Council resolution which allowed aid to reach Syrian civilians without the consent of Syrian authorities. We saw her pivot Australia’s priorities to include Australia’s most important and often overlooked partners, our closest neighbours in the Pacific. We saw her drastically increase the proportion of the Australian Aid budget that is directed to the empowerment of women and girls. This is just to name a few of her incredible achievements.  

While seeing Ms Bishop leave politics in 2019 was an incredibly sad day, it also sparked in me a new sense of ambition, not necessarily to become a politician, but to leave the world in a better state than I found it, like Ms Bishop has done. In fact, I think Ms Bishop may have sparked a whole generation of upcoming girl-bosses, to use a term which shows my age. 

In 2019, Ms Bishop visited St Catherine’s and my Global Politics class. No matter the topic, Ms Bishop astounded us with her poise and in-depth answers. She touched on the notion of aiming high and not letting others define you. It was a pivotal moment for me, and my future choices. It drove me to choose to study at ANU, undertaking Law and PPE (Politics, Philosophy and Economics). This choice came with the support and encouragement of my School, my family and seeing such an empowering woman in the role which I look up to most.  

I am so grateful to have Julie Bishop as a role model, a woman so inspiring, who demonstrates the strength of women’s resilience and agency that is too often left unseen.”  

Georgina Cottrill (‘19)
2019 School Co-Captain 

The 2022 Ruth Langley luncheon really was a celebration of ‘girl bosses’, past, present, and future.