I wish to acknowledge the Gadigal people of the Eora Nation as traditional custodians of the land we are meeting on today.
"Shameless greedheads".
That's how author John Birmingham described the officers of the NSW Rum Corps that group of army officers, land owners and monopolists who famously took over a young Sydney's economy and external trade in the mid-1790s.
For more than a decade, as the tiny colony struggled to establish itself as a self-sustaining the Rum Corps held the reins of economic power in the city trading in rum as a substitute for currency dominating control of land grants, access to convict labour, and maritime trade.
It was an inauspicious start for Sydney as a global city.
But by 1810, as Birmingham acknowledged in his unauthorised biography of Sydney it was thanks to the "villainous efforts" of the Rum Corps that Sydney had become a hotspot on the global trading scene.
Here is the evocative picture he paints of Sydney as a global trading hub circa 1810, two centuries ago:
"Bullock drays tottering with loads of barley and wheat creaked and rumbled down George Street raising billows of dust as they weaved around giant ruts and washouts in which packs of dogs fell upon unwary half-feral goats.
"Coastal packets plied the harbour with maize from the Hawkesbury or coal and limestone from Broken Bay.
"They dropped anchor off Campbell's Wharf next to Calcutta traders which sat low in the water, weighed down with spars of Indian timber and Chinese sandalwood.
"American whalers called in on their way to and from the east coast of New Zealand.
"During one week three sealers arrived from there with 45,000 skins."
Sydney has been a part of global trade ever since.
These days, of course, there are no bullock drays down George Street.
Things have reached a bigger scale.
Sydney's Gross Regional Product is estimated at $155 billion – a fifth of the state's output as a whole.
Today the industry that employs the most Sydneysiders would have inconceivable to the Rum Corps and its contemporaries, 180,000 people working in professional, scientific and technical services and another 140,000 in financial and insurance services.
That's not counting the 52,000 in public administration, the 37,000 in health care, or the 32,000 in education and training.
And of course Sydney City is only a part of the much, much bigger story of Sydney as a whole.
Sydney is a city of multiple CBDs, with Parramatta and North Sydney both serving as major business districts and cultural hubs.
And Western Sydney on its own is nearly a quarter of the state's economy.
So combined, Greater Sydney is a juggernaut.
I am lucky enough to represent the electorate of Kingsford Smith – a part of Sydney with deep links that extend back to the first days of the colonial period and of course much deeper roots that stretch back tens thousands of years in the history of the Gadigal and Bidjigal people of the Eora.
This is a very special city, and today it's a global city.
One recognised for its beauty, its energy, its innovation and its dynamism – all factors that continue to make it a magnet for migration, business and investment from around the world.
As we go about telling Sydney's story in 2025, I think it's important that we tell it in all its glory, with all its light and dark because Sydney has, like all of us, a complex and winding history a history that has made this place what it is.
So I'm looking forward to speaking to you tonight about how we can work together to promote this amazing city at a time of such profound global change.
Thank you.