Queensland Volunteering Awards Presentation and Recognition Ceremony

Minister; Shadow Minister; other distinguished guests; ladies and gentlemen. I am thrilled to join Volunteering Queensland for this marvellous occasion to celebrate and publicly acknowledge the countless men, women and children who give their time, passion and compassion to nurture the advancement of our communities.

As Governor of Queensland, I was honoured to be invited to act as Patron of Volunteering Queensland when I was first appointed, almost three years ago.

It’s a role I accepted with pride, recognising that vice-regal support can help gain additional community support and act as an advocate for the organisation and its aims.

Today, as we approach the end of National Volunteer Week, I am very pleased to have this opportunity to publicly thank Queensland’s thousands of volunteers and to pay tribute to the spirit of volunteerism.

That spirit is central to the values we cherish most as a society and that we identify as fundamentally Australian, especially our belief that every Australian citizen is entitled to ‘a fair go’ and that, as much as possible, nobody should be left behind.

And I saw that spirit in action just last month, strangers driven to alleviate the plight of their fellow citizens, in the aftermath of ex-Tropical Cyclone Debbie, in Mackay and Logan.

The spirit of volunteerism underpins our exceptional generosity as a nation. According to Philanthropy Australia, more than eighty percent of the Australian population made donations to charities in twenty-sixteen, giving a total of 12.5 billion dollars.

That’s a very impressive total, but what those statistics don’t include is the enormous value of the contributions made in kind by volunteers through giving their time, talent and commitment.

In Queensland alone, volunteers in twenty-fourteen donated a total of 133.4 million hours of work, a contribution that was valued, conservatively, at 11.6 billion dollars to the Queensland economy.

That’s almost as much as the national total of donations and is a truly remarkable contribution.

I am looking forward to the announcement of the exceptional Queensland individuals and organisations who will receive Queensland Volunteering Awards this year and, on behalf of all Queenslanders, congratulate and thank them for their contribution and for their commitment to making a difference. 

They are the living embodiment of the theme for this year’s National Volunteer Week: ‘give happy; live happy’, and they are an inspiration to us all. Thank you.