Urangan Pier Centenary Celebrations

Federal Member for Hinkler, Mr Keith Pitt; State Member for Hervey Bay, Mr Ted Sorenson; Acting Mayor Councillor George Seymour; other distinguished guests; ladies and gentlemen; girls and boys.

Thank you Mr Burns for your welcome to country. I acknowledge the Butchulla people, the traditional custodians, and I express my respect for the Elders.

It is to Kaye’s and my great delight that we are here on the picturesque Fraser Coast for today’s highly significant centenary celebrations.

One hundred years ago to the day yesterday, Queensland’s twelfth Governor, Sir Hamilton Goold-Adams, descended from the locomotive engine he had piloted on to the jetty to declare the Urangan Pier officially open.

The official party then proceeded down the Pier for a banquet, where, as was reported in the Brisbane Courier the following day, the Governor remarked at the great prosperity the Pier was to unlock, and granted the school children of the region a holiday!

Unfortunately, girls and boys, the Governor no longer has that power! But I am nonetheless very happy to be here, with Kaye, to continue the proud vice-regal association with this Pier!

While the railway tracks are long gone, and the Pier no longer transports sugar, fuel and general produce to and from awaiting ships, the Urangan Pier remains critical to the economic and social life of the region.

Indeed I fondly recall visiting the Pier during my childhood years living in Maryborough in the 50s.

It was to me then a remarkable engineering feat – it still is, even in its slightly truncated form!

But much more than that, I now view the Pier as a sign of this wonderful community’s stability, and of Hervey Bay’s progress, as it reaches out beyond established bounds!

So much was also recognised when Major General Peter Arnison, Queensland’s twenty-third Governor, officially opened the refurbished Pier in 1999, after the community fought so hard to return it to its proper pride of place.

Kaye and I wholeheartedly thank and congratulate everyone involved in today’s celebrations, particularly our host, the Fraser Coast Regional Council, and the Pier Centenary Organising Committee, and the event’s many supporters, including the Hervey Bay Historical Village and Museum, whose wonderful and worthwhile publication I will shortly sign for posterity.

We also thank the people of Hervey Bay and the Fraser Coast for their enthusiastic turnout today, you are all wonderful Queenslanders.

I look forward to unveiling shortly a plaque commemorating 100 years of the Urangan Pier – may it continue to be a place of which the entire community can be proud for at least another century to come.