The Buntine Oration is a biennial invited presentation and speech made at the conference of the Australian College of Educators (ACE). It was established in 1960 in his memory by the four children of Walter Murray Buntine who survived him: R. M. Buntine, M. A. Buntine, R. D. Buntine, and D. M. G. Wilson. The inaugural oration was given by Peter Karmel (who had, himself, attended Caulfield Grammar School from 1929 to 1939) in 1962 at the third annual ACE conference and the most recent was in 2008.
Buntine family Walter Buntine (1866–1953) had a significant role in the development of education in the Australian state of Victoria from his position as headmaster of Caulfield Grammar School (1896–1932). His son, M. Arnold Buntine (1898–1975), was an Australian rules footballer who played with St Kilda before studying education and earning a PhD from the University of Edinburgh. Prior to World War II, Arnold was headmaster of Camberwell Grammar School in Victoria and then the Hale School in Western Australia. He served at Tobruk and in Syria as a captain in the 2/28th Battalion. Ultimately rising to Lieutenant-Colonel, he led the 2/11th Battalion. He returned to the Hale School in 1944, returning to Victoria in 1945 as headmaster of Geelong College. Arnold was married to Gladys (Jim) Buntine (1901–1992), who was the chief commissioner of the Australian Girl Guides from 1962 until 1968 and an advocate for the importance of education. She was awarded first an OBE and later an MBE for her services to youth. Robert Buntine (1929–2014), their son, had leadership roles at the King's School and Newington College in Sydney. Mark Buntine of Curtin University of Technology is the most current of the Buntine family of educators.
List of orations The Buntine Oration has been delivered by many highly recognised people. Paul Hasluck was the Australian minister for external affairs at the time he delivered the 1964 oration, going on to become governor-general of Australia in 1969. Zelman Cowen was the governor-general at the time of the 1980 oration. Michael Somare was elected to the first national parliament of Papua New Guinea in 1972, becoming chief minister by the time of the 1974; he became the country's first prime minister when independence was granted in 1975. 2006 orator Peter Doherty shared the 1996 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine and was the 1997 Australian of the Year. Two High Court justices have given the oration (Robert French and Michael Kirby), as has the chancellor of the Australian National University ("Nugget" Coombs) and the inaugural president of the ACE, James Darling.
Year Orator Topic References 1962 Peter H. Karmel Some Economic Aspects of Education 1964 Sir Paul M. C. Hasluck Australia and its Neighbours 1966 Percy H. Partridge Some Problems of Educational Policy in Democratic Societies 1968 Sir John G. Crawford The Accountability of Universities 1970 H. C. "Nugget" Coombs Human Values – Education in the Changing Australian Society 1972 Sir James R. Darling Responsibility 1974 Sir Michael T. Somare Education for Self-Reliance 1976 Hugh R. Hudson MHA The Political Economy of Educational Advancement 1978 Barbara Falk Personal Identity Making in Australia 1980 Sir Zelman Cowan Politics in Education 1982 Kwong Lee Dow Education Policy Making in Australia 1984 Michael D. Kirby Education – On Hanging In There 1986 Hedley Beare Shared Meanings About Education: The Economic Paradigm Considered 1988 Di Yerbury The Tradition of Scholarly Excellence 1990 Stephen A. FitzGerald Asia, Education, and the Australian Mind 1992 K. J. Austin Asche The Literacy Imperative 1994 Paige H. Porter Women and Leadership in Education: The Construction of Gender in the Workplace 1996 Robert S. French Educating for Democracy in the Twenty First Century 1997 Frances H. Christie Literacy Research and Teaching: Paradigms for the Late Twentieth Century 1998 Millicent E. Poole Re-Framing Higher Education: Mind the Market 1999 Alan Ruby Difference is the Essence of Humanity 2000 Barry McGaw International Comparisons of Expenditure in Education 2001 Swee-Hin Toh Uprooting Violence, Growing Peace: Education for Compassionate Citizenship 2003 Stephanie Young Passive Consumers or Co-creators – Listening to Learners? 2004 Stephen Downes Learning Networks 2006 Peter C. Doherty The Education Challenge for a Knowledge Economy 2008 Joseph Lo Bianco Imagination, Inspiration, Innovation
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