Good Evening ladies and gentlemen, the Vice Regal couple, Major Sarah Winter, Your Honours and
other esteemed guests.
I would like to firstly acknowledge the traditional owners of the land we are gathered on tonight, the
Gadigal people of the Eora Nation, and extend a warm welcome to Elders past, present and
emerging, particularly those in attendance tonight.
My name is Hayley Aldrich and I am a Special Counsel at Carroll & O’Dea Lawyers, and have been
part of Maithri Panagoda’s team for the past 8.5 years.
What can one say about Maithri? Well, apparently quite a lot, as the almost 500 pages of Pursuing a
Vision of Justice can attest.
We gather tonight to launch this book featuring essays written in honour of Maithri, about his work,
his family and his countries, Sri Lanka and Australia.
Many of the essays also provide a fascinating general history of both Sri Lanka, including the
esteemed Ananda College and the University of Colombo Faculty of Law; a history of Sri Lankans in
early Australia; and life in regional NSW in the early 1980s at the Western Aboriginal Legal Service.
For the book I was asked to write a few short verses about my experiences working for Maithri. I
noted the following:
[READ pages 294-295 from the book]
Maithri means the world to his friends, family and colleagues, which is one of the reasons that I said
yes when he asked me to MC tonight – despite giving birth 13 days ago.
I would now like to introduce our first esteemed guest, Uncle Ray Davison to welcome us to country
tonight. Uncle Ray is a proud Gadigal man, directed or the Board of the Metropolitan Aboriginal
Lands Council, and worked for the Redfern Aboriginal Medical Service for over 30 years.
- Uncle Ray
I would now like to welcome Her Excellency the Honourable Margaret Beazley AC QC, 39 th Governor
of NSW. As many of you would know, prior to being Governor, Her Excellency was president of the
Court of Appeal, being the first woman to hold the office, and enjoyed a long and distinguished
career in law. Please welcome the Governor. - Her Excellency
I would now like to introduce our next speaker, Justice Dina Yehia. Her Honour was the first person
of Greek-Egyptian descent to sit on the Supreme Court of NSW. This from a child that when she
arrived in Australia as a 7 year old she was unable to speak of understand English. She has been a
tireless worker for First Nations peoples. Please welcome Her Honour. - Her Honour
Our final speaker tonight is Michael O’Dea. There would be no Carroll & O’Dea today without
Michael O’Dea; Managing Partner of the firm for over 40 years, he is also a former Mayor of North
Sydney and has made an outstanding contribution to the community, being awarded an Order of
Australia as well as a Papal Knighthood, of which we at the firm are very proud. - Michael O’Dea