Annual Report 1997

Chairman's Report

When the Foundation was first created as a memorial to Sir Robert Menzies, a National Appeal was launched in May 1979 and met with an immediate, gratifying response. At the close of the Appeal, some $6.2 million had been collected to support the work of the embryonic Foundation.

Since then, we have had two major objectives. The first, as listed in every Annual Report, was to develop appropriate forms of memorial in honour of Sir Robert: the second was to try to ensure that our funds were inflation-proofed so as to maintain our financial position long and indefinitely into the future and, if possible, in perpetuity. It is gratifying to be able to report that, in our work to date, we have been able to meet both these objectives. A glance at the Foundation's publications, listed at the end of this Annual Report, clearly demonstrates how strongly we have been able to pursue our principal objective of creating memorials to Sir Robert that will contribute to the health of Australians.

I am pleased to be able to report that, at 31 December, the market value of our investments, under the management of Westpac Investment Management Pty Ltd, approached $14 million. This means that we have more than kept pace with inflation. I am also pleased to be able to report that the year's operating results, as recorded in the Directors' Report for 1997, shows a net surplus of income over expenditure of $220,837.

Turning now to the expenditure side, our major disbursements of rather more than $400,000 were directed to activities named in honour of Sir Robert Menzies. Of that sum, $370,000, or rather more than 50% of our disposable income, was used to support the work of the Menzies School of Health Research in Darwin, the Menzies Centre for Population Health Research in Hobart and the Sir Robert Menzies Centre for Australian Studies in London.

In terms of our other disbursements, our postgraduate scholarship program continues strongly. As related later in this Report, two scholarships were awarded in Law as well as one in the Allied Health Sciences and, in association with the National Health and Medical Research Council, we again offered a joint NHMRC/RG Menzies Fellowship as one of that Council's highly prestigious CJ Martin awards. The second award was made in 1997 and the successful candidate will hold that award and our annual supplementation from 1998 to the year 2001.

Last year the Foundation set up a Policy Reassessment Working Group to explore avenues to develop some new initiatives that would not only enhance the Menzies name but would also expand the Foundation's work for the benefit of the Australian community. That group recommended the creation of two new Menzies Fellowships, one each at the Menzies medical research units in Darwin and Hobart. That recommendation has been implemented and the first Fellow in Hobart has been appointed, whilst the inaugural Fellow in Darwin will be appointed early in 1998.

The Review Group also paid close attention to the Foundation's support for the Sir Robert Menzies Centre for Australian Studies in London. Following the Federal Government's withdrawal of funding support in 1988, the Foundation provided "emergency" indexed funding of up to $350 000 per annum. This burden of this grant was exacerbated by high exchange rate variations, coupled with high UK inflation and lower investment returns in Australia, and in 1995 this virtually obliged the Foundation to reduce its grant to $100 000 per annum. The Review Group noted that the Foundation's grant was conceived as short-term bridging support and not as a source of financial support on a long-term basis and therefore recommended that the grant be not renewed when the present commitment ceases in October 2000. That recommendation was accepted by the Board at its December meeting, but with the proviso that we would take all possible steps to assist the Centre in seeking financial support from other sources.

In my Report last year, I described how the Foundation had created its own "home page" on the Internet. Our initial objective was to provide easy access to our various scholarships and we therefore included the full prospectus for the Law and Allied Health Sciences scholarships. This enabled intending candidates to "download" and then complete the actual application form on their own computers, thus saving time and considerable trouble. We think that we were the first non-government organisation to make scholarship application forms available in this way. Rather more than half our scholarship applicants this year availed themselves of this Internet facility which we also used as a vehicle for publication of the scientific papers presented at the 1996 Hobart conference on The Health Consequences of Ozone Depletion.

For the sake of completeness, we also included some biographical notes on the life of Sir Robert, and discovered that our site was being frequently visited. Moreover, those visits clustered in a small number of weeks which coincided with school terms. It would seem that some teachers may be using this material for school projects purposes and we are therefore building up our Internet site.

One of the most noteworthy features of 1997 was our ability, for the first time, to support a meeting of the Alumni, former Menzies Scholarship holders, in conjunction with the December Board meeting. That meeting was very well supported by the Alumni from whose meeting came a number of important initiatives that are reported in more detail elsewhere in this Report. With the enthusiasm and support of this highly talented group, the future of the Foundation seems assured.

In December last year, at the time of the December meetings, we were privileged to receive an invitation from His Excellency the Honourable Sir James Gobbo, AC, Governor of Victoria, for Directors, Alumni and friends of the Foundation, to a late afternoon reception at Government House. It was a most pleasant gathering and, on behalf of the Board, I express our thanks to Sir James for his warm hospitality.

During the year, Sir Zelman Cowen retired from the Board, thus ending an association with Menzies memorial activities stretching over almost twenty years. Sir Zelman was Patron of the original 1979 National Appeal Committee; he officially opened our headquarters at Clarendon Terrace in 1982; he was the inaugural Menzies Visiting Fellow to the United States of America; he was Chairman of the Governing Board of the Australian Studies Centre from 1982 to 1990 and delivered the inaugural Sir Robert Menzies Memorial Lecture at the Centre in 1988; he has participated strongly in our law scholarships and in the past several years has acted as Chairman of the final Selection Committee. We shall miss his continuing involvement in our activities, his warm sense of humour and his wise counsel.

Ninian M Stephen
Chairman