North Queensland Club 130th Anniversary Dinner

Thank you, David. Federal Member for Herbert, Your Honours, current and past Presidents and Committee members, ladies and gentlemen of North Queensland.

Kaye and I are delighted to join you all for tonight’s important celebratory occasion.

We are also delighted to be back here in Townsville – indeed, the second time in a fortnight, our having attended the resplendent Australian Festival of Chamber Music, and hosted a community reception, but two weekends ago!

And it is an enormous source of pride that Kaye and I are in this proud garrison city this weekend commemorating the Victory of the Pacific 70 years on.

Townsville is a city – and indeed a wider Northern region – with which Kaye and I have substantial personal and professional connection.

Kaye lived here with her birth family for 5 years until grade 12; and I have myself been here as a circuit Judge, and attending this august Club, on many occasions over the years; in my early days at the Club as a guest of Sir George Kneipp, a Club stalwart in the 1980s, then Justice Kerry Cullinane, and often, as guest of the North Queensland Law Association.

I always enjoyed the Club visits very much. The Club’s atmosphere is redolent of the warmth and traditions of this unmatched part of the State, and its members exhibit characteristic cheerfulness, friendliness and confidence.

That aside, there is a special complexion to tonight’s occasion.

First and foremost tonight we celebrate the 130 years of the existence of the Club – particularly significant when we consider next year’s wider Townsville sesquicentenary anniversary. This Club is a very long-standing North Queensland institution.

It is a magnificent milestone for any organisation – let alone a relatively small, not-for-profit which relies largely for its capabilities on loyal memberships and a dedicated volunteer committee contingent.

I warmly congratulate the successive Committees and Presidents. Maintaining a club like this these days, let alone developing and expanding it, can be a fraught business, and I especially congratulate and thank our President Glenys Schuntner and her current Committee members.

Over those 130 years, the Club has maintained recognition as an integral part of the region’s social fabric.

It has succeeded wonderfully in promoting a highly appropriate and accommodating atmosphere, catering to the professional and social needs of our enterprising North.

Clubs of course cultivate social interaction and place value on tradition – both predicates of our civil society.

However, inevitably, some traditions must change, and I applaud the Club for ensuring it continues to meet the contemporary needs of current and future members.

The Club, for example, judiciously – and rightly – encouraged women to join in 1996 (and elected in 2013 our current and first woman President), and recently created new under-35 associate and spousal memberships. The Club recognizes contemporary expectations.

I was also interested to see on the Club’s new website that the dress code had even been amended now to allow the wearing in certain circumstances of jeans.

This reflects the modern sartorial requirements of many working professionals. It also obviously caters for your weather.

(I am not sure my Official Secretary would appreciate my citing this as precedent though, in asking for a similar reconsideration of dress code at Fernberg.)

There is an additional honour to Kaye’s and my being here tonight. Last year I continued the proud tradition of accepting vice-regal Patronage of the Club. 

I am also currently – and until tomorrow afternoon – Administrator of the Commonwealth, a position I fulfil now, as the longest serving State Governor, in the Governor-General’s absence. I am therefore in a position to congratulate you on behalf of all Australians.

The Club has over its long history encouraged stable and reliable contributions to public life from its members, and I believe North Queensland is very much the better for that.

Throughout our Nation, Clubs such the North Queensland Club play an important role in promoting conviviality and mutual support among like minded people.

I am proud to be Patron of this fine Club, as we are all proud that it now celebrates as many as 130 years. Long may it flourish!

Thank you.