It is approximately thirty years since my own graduation in law. The period of my life which ended at that time is one upon which I look back with great warmth. I trust you will all have the same experience.

Perhaps the most striking difference between the time of my own graduation and that of yours, is the speed with which everything happens today.

I grew up in a country in which the Prime Minister, Sir Robert Menzies was able to travel to England for six weeks by boat with the Australian cricket team stay, for a month or so watching cricket and then return by boat, taking another six weeks to do so. Such conduct is completely inconceivable today. Everything has speeded up. Sir Robert Menzies would never have approved of one day cricket. Even today, he would not be alone in that.

There have, of course, been many improvements directly associated with increased speed. If there were a competition to build a statue for the one person who has most improved the Australian standard of living over the course of the twentieth century, I would nominate the Chief Engineer on the Boeing 747 Project. Until about the time in the mid to late sixties, when I was a student, it was still cheaper to take someone on a boat and feed them for six weeks, than it was to fly to Europe. There can be no doubt that the expanded opportunities for travel available now to all Australians have overcome the intellectual and cultural provincialism with which this nation was afflicted for most of its existence.

Nevertheless, as a nation we have substituted the tyranny of distance with a tyranny of immediacy - a tyranny which, at least, we share with everyone else.

The process of acceleration is unremitting. In the United States it took forty-six years for twenty-five percent of the population to be connected to electricity. It took thirty-five years for that proportion to get the telephone. It took sixteen years for that proportion to take up personal computers, but only seven years for that proportion of twenty-five percent, to be connected to the world wide web.

Anyone using contemporary telecommunications or computer technology has experienced the phenomenon of being infuriated by the delay associated with some processing function, not remembering that only six months before, that length of delay was perfectly acceptable and that six months or a year before that, the function, having been introduced for the first time, was regarded as an absolute marvel.

Where we once spoke of words per minute we now speak of characters per second. One can buy telephone answering machines with a quick replay button in a digital format, so that the reply is accelerated without the high pitch of a Disneyfied chipmunk. Similarly, one can buy music CD players with an option that lets the user close the one or two second gap between tracks.

Time is more important than ever. In Tokyo one restaurant charges by time at the rate of thirty-five yen per minute. You clock in, you clock out and your bill is computed on the time difference. Indeed, it is necessary for us to create the illusion that we are saving time even when we cannot do so. On many elevators the “door close” button is in fact a placebo. It has no function, other than to placate those who measure their life in seconds.

Perhaps we sense that time is scarce because there is more to absorb. On one recent calculation, a search on the subject “Information Overload” on the world wide web hits twenty thousand different sites. That is information overload indeed.

In the midst of this change, it remains appropriate to reflect - when we can find the time to do so - on things that endure. Although yours is a new University and your School of Law - for which today is the first graduation - is even younger, your campus contains one of the most important heritage complexes in Australia. It is appropriate to reflect on the significance of that heritage.

Last year the Supreme Court of New South Wales celebrated the one hundred and seventy-fifth Anniversary of its creation. On 17 May 1824 the Charter of Justice creating the Court was promulgated and, thus, was here inaugurated a free community governed by the rule of law.

Next year we will celebrate the Centenary of Federation. In a few years we will celebrate the one hundred and fiftieth Anniversary of representative and responsible Government. These are old traditions by any standards. The number of nations which have judicial institutions as old as the Supreme Court of New South Wales can be counted on the fingers of one hand.

In 1824 when the Supreme Court was established, France was a monarchy. Ahead of it lay one empire and four separate republics. Germany did not exist. It consisted of a series of kingdoms, principalities, dukedoms and city states. It had before it a process of unification and an empire, a republic, a totalitarian dictatorship, further division into two separate republics and reunification. All of these various changes were accompanied by fundamental alterations in the basic institutions, both judicial and governmental.

Virtually everywhere one looks in Europe, Asia, Africa and Latin America the institutional structure bears not the slightest resemblance to that which existed one hundred and seventy-five years ago or, in most places, even one hundred years ago. In Australia there is a clear line of uninterrupted institutional continuity.

Australians like to think of this as a young country. Indeed the second line of our national anthem states: “For we are young and free”. However, when it comes to the basic mechanisms of governance this is not a young country, this is an old country.

The twin great institutional traditions of our system of governance - the rule of law and the need of the consent of the governed - form part of the core content of Australian national identity. Their force today, reflected in the universal acceptance of the legitimacy of the institutions which perform these functions, is derived in large measure from the longevity of the traditions by which they are performed.

There is a tendency for some to treat the courts as if they were some form of publicly funded dispute resolution service. Such an approach would deny our long heritage. The Supreme Court does not provide a service to litigants as consumers. The Court administers justice in accordance with law. This is a core function of government.

There is a great deal of wisdom deeply embedded in institutions which have grown and adapted to changing circumstances over long periods of time. It is a regrettable characteristic of much Australian public debate that it proceeds on the basis that history is of little significance. Indeed it sometimes appears as if many think of history as something that happened somewhere else. No law graduate could think in that way. I am sure that your studies will have shown you just how significant has been the process of adaptation of our law to the changing demands of varying social conditions over time.

As I have said, those changes now come with greater speed. As you yourselves take your place in that process - some in the law, some in other spheres of endeavour - you should reflect on the strength of the tradition which you have behind you.

On this day I congratulate each of you on your achievement and wish you well in the future application of the knowledge you have acquired during these important years.