Ben Shewry at the National Press Club - December 2025
We proudly acknowledge the Bunurong as the first people to love, live and dine on the lands on which Attica sits today.
We recognise that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Island Peoples were the first sovereign nations of Australia from time immemorial, and they never ceded this sovereignty.
Ben Shewry at the National Press Club - December 2025
Ben Shewry became the first chef to address the National Press Club of Australia in its 60-year history. This is his reflection on why hospitality workers struggle to claim seats at tables of power—and why they must.
Words by Ben Shewry
Published 09.02.26
Be Shewry on stage at National Press Club of Australia
Exciting opportunities often become scary at the exact point you realise how much work they’ll take, and the risk required.
Mid-October 2024, two weeks after the release of my book, 'Uses For Obsession', I received an invite to address The National Press Club of Australia in Canberra. For a week I felt really honoured and excited about it, then as the December date loomed, my anxiety built, and my way of dealing with that was to pretend that problem was that I had nothing to say. I postponed the speech a year. A year later I’d nearly talked myself into turning the opportunity down again.
Self-denial amongst our people is common. We might appear in control and powerful as we command brigades of diligent cooks or lead large teams of refined waiters.
We are comfortable here, but it is a façade. As soon as you take us out of that very controlled, and hierarchical environment, or away from known roles (TV chef, recipe writer, restauranteur, food influencer) we don’t know how to relate to the outside world, let alone enter the political fray.
In my speech, I wrote about how hospitality workers are not raised to easily assume places of privilege, power or influence. If you come from the service economy, or working class more generally you’ll know what I’m hinting at.
A gnawing feeling in the gut, that whispers every time we try something new: ‘You don’t belong here, keep your head down, don’t wish for too much, you can’t do this, you’ll look stupid and you’ll fail’.
This isn’t a form of humblebrag. It’s more like a plague of confidence.
Were it not for the honest support of a trusted friend, I certainly would not have taken the opportunity and made the speech. That friend told me I was blowing it, he said that when I talked about raising the standards for hospitality workers, then that meant raising my own standard too, that I’d be letting down my industry and the young people who look up to me.
We had a robust discussion about potential speech topics- sexism, workers’ rights, surfing (yes surfing, his suggestion) and finally creativity. There might be something in a speech about Australia’s complicated relationship with creativity I thought. I slept on it. The next day I woke, cancelled all my appointments for two days and wrote the rough draft of this speech.
A few weeks later, I’d take my place on a stage where I thought I didn’t belong, a stage upon which every Australian Prime Minister, many Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander leaders, and global and local business leaders have delivered speeches weekly since 1963. I was the first Chef in the Press Club’s history and gave it everything I had.
I hope you find yourself in it in some small way. I think the best we can offer each other, is to stand for more than only ourselves, and say to our fellow humans, I SEE YOU.
Ben and Kylie Shewry at the Press Club of Australia
