Honours and Awards within the Australian Honours System - North Queensland Investiture Ceremony

Kaye and I warmly welcome today recipients of honours and awards under the Australian honours system and Australian Bravery Decorations, their proud families, friends and colleagues, and our special guests.

I at once acknowledge the Wulgurukaba and Bindal people, whose traditional connection to the area around Townsville goes back thousands of years.

This is an important day for everyone here and for the broader community. Today, worthy Queenslanders are invested with honours and awards under our nation’s preeminent system of recognition, the Australian honours system. These honours capture the values and experiences of Australians. They mark our recipients’ contributions to community, their achievements, as well outside the sphere of the ordinary.  

There is no template for an honours recipient.  In this group of awardees we find a range of backgrounds, personalities, interests, talents and places of origin. This wonderful diversity is one of the very great strengths of the Australian honours system.  However, common to all recipients is a sense of selflessness, exhibited through dedicated and determined service.

Today, I also present Australian Bravery Decorations for conspicuous acts of courage. The blood-red ribbons, and the medallions which recipients respectively receive, recognise momentary acts of valour - momentary acts that may lead to a lifetime of personal anguish and sacrifice. However, recipients have sought to preserve, in the face of peril, that most revered gift – life – of their fellow human beings. Preserving the dignity of human life is a crucial stipulation to protecting and advancing our communities. It is also an attendant obligation as peace-loving citizens in our, at times, unpredictable world.

That we are in Townsville makes today’s ceremony all the more significant. Part of the Governor’s role is to get to know all people, from all aspects, of our great State. It is quintessential to my role that I visit our regional fellow Queenslanders as often as practicable.

Kaye’s and my first visit following my swearing-in as Governor in July was here, to Townsville. This is also the first regional investiture ceremony we are undertaking, in this remarkable tropical city.  

Being in north Queensland, with its proximity to the Great Barrier Reef, the transcendental outback, and our vast mineral wealth, reminds us of the State’s many material and environmental riches.

But we are most touched by the spiritual richness of this region. This is reflected in the many areas of endeavour in which today’s recipients work, tirelessly and selflessly, so they may create a better place in which to live. Their service and dedication are the great ramparts of the remarkable organic sense of ‘community’ that exists in regional Queensland.

It is therefore with great pleasure that I congratulate our award recipients on the signal honours and decorations their country has accorded them today; and that I thank them wholeheartedly, on behalf of the Queensland and broader Australian community, for their contributions to our country and their State.