Saturday, 12 April 2025
Sydney Showground
Her Excellency the Honourable Margaret Beazley AC KC, Governor of New South Wales

Thank you, John^[1].

I acknowledge the Burramattagal and Wangal of the Eora Nation, custodians of these lands and waterways, and pay my respects to their Elders past, present, and future, as well as to the Elders of all parts of our State from which you travel.

Minister,^[2] Major General,^[3] Commissioner,^[4] friends, family, distinguished guests all,

When my commission as 39^th Governor arrived in May 2019 it was our intention to get out to far western New South Wales as soon, and as often, as possible because that area was still affected by severe drought.  That changed very quickly when the bushfires started in August.  And of course, after that, we all knew the Mantra - drought, fire, COVID, flood, flood, cyclone, and don’t forget the mice - it was that cycle of events which significantly fashioned our connection with the bush.

So how does it all happen?

At Government House, there is a room that once, amongst other uses over the building’s 180 years life, was the head maid’s bedroom. It is not a very large room, 3.7 x 5.2, unlike the butler’s, from which it was well separated. 

Today, it is a meeting room painted a ubiquitous public service cream where 8 of us sit weekly around something that passes as a board room table.    You might call it one of the many engine rooms in the House.  A map hangs on the wall, dotted with roundhead pins in 6 different colours – about 110-120.  We’ve stopped counting - these days we look to where the pins are bunched closely together. 

The pins are colour coded according to year and represent the towns and villages outside of Sydney we have visited over the 6 years so far in my time as Governor. 

What is not represented on the map are the places of the many telephone calls I made to regional mayors during COVID, or the more than 5,000 letters I wrote to every hospital in NSW, every school and, towards the end of the year, to every high school with a letter directed to each HSC student. 

Although, as I have said, there is some bunching of the pins they extend out to the corner country in the top left of the map including Tibooburra; one at Tweed Heads with Queensland literally across the road from where we stayed; in the bottom right, one at Eden; and in the bottom left, one at Wentworth.

To the west, there are pins at and around Broken Hill; to the north, around Goodooga; to the East, and right off the map, on Lord Howe Island; and to the south, around Albury.

Between these are many more, dotted along the great inland rivers—the Murray, the Darling, we’ve gazed at the tranquillity of the Murray lipping into the Darling.  We’ve seen the Murrumbidgee, the Lachlan, Macquarie, and Barwon, the Clarence and the Richmond.

We’ve stayed in caravan parks and little motels where the shower feels no bigger than a a shoe box. We’ve driven along long straight roads into a seemingly non-existent horizon.  Along the way we’ve seen emus, brolgas, kangaroos and goats, soy, canola, and wheat crops. I’ve been in a high-rise computerised tractor. We’ve been to a pig farm where they are capturing enough methane gas to run 2/3 ‘s of its operations. We’ve putted along oyster leases and seen homes and businesses gutted by fire or flood and have literally felt the spores jumping off the water-soaked walls. We’ve learned you can’t get a coffee after 2pm and dinner after 8.

Most importantly we meet the people. And we’ve learned the people are always so nice and often a bit curious as to what all the kerfuffle is all about.

The way we have structured our visits has come about quite organically.   We realised early the importance of having an overview, so our first stop is invariably the Local Council.  To thrive, towns need businesses, so we try to meet the business chamber if there is one and always visit one or two of the major employers in the town.   Most recently we visited a gold mine, and I cradled a $1.2 million gold ingot in my hands. In Griffith, we saw the astonishing processing and extraction processes manufactured—and exported internationally—by FlavourTech.

A couple of weeks ago at Lake Cargelligo we visited Durotank, a multibillion-dollar fuel storage manufacturing business conceived out of the drought by 2 brothers who put their skills and acumen to use when their family farm literally ran dry

We’ll visit a hospital – if there is one – an Aboriginal Medical Centre - if there is one - a Royal Flying Doctor Clinic - if there is one - a school – even if it only has 5 students. The little school at Louth with its 5 students has given us one of our best experiences. On the weekends, the kids go fencing with their dads – and they all follow the footy - of one sort or the other so I have to be completely up to date on each code.  Further out west, the kids, girls and boys, all go fishing on the weekend.  And in the far west, the mood of the town directly mirrors the health of the river.

We meet the most beautiful aboriginal people – aunties, uncles, kids - they are warm and embracing.  

But let me go back to the little school at Louth. We arrive, the kids have been schooled to say “good morning Your Excellency’ – which they sort of do – it is clear they have no interest in me at all.  In ascending order, the interest is the car with its gold Crown number plate - every kid wants to be Governor to be able to have one of those cars – not only in Louth; next come the protection officers - the cops - because they have guns and the kids want to know whether they have killed anyone, then there’s MR WILSON.  

The kids at Louth, having worked out which one was MR WILSON, wanted to know if he ate cat food and they would go off into peals of laughter.  Even Dennis was bemused – as it turned out the kids had a cat called Wilson and so the only thing they wanted to know was whether the human Mr Wilson ate cat food.   So much for the Governor’s community engagement. 

But I get it.  More than once I’ve been upstaged by sheep or cattle when opening the Local Show or Dennis talking to a Brahmin steer.

We’ll always visit one or more not for profits – especially in the mental health, disability, youth or housing sectors.   We always try and have a community reception where we get the town together - in Hay one of the guests said that she had caught up with people she hadn’t seen in ages – a small thing but so important for the locals.   

The challenge is the same in every town: for the Council it is the rating base; for the people it is housing and services – health and education, lack of connectivity along the 100’s of kms of country roads they have to travel along and on the farms themselves.  And there is definitely the sense that the city bureaucrats simply do not understand.  Or that they are forgotten – and sometimes that’s true.   When we visited West Wyalong recently it was the first visit by a Governor in 54 years - and they had a black-tie dinner in our honour to celebrate.

The CWA remains at the heart of many communities, and we have been able to either bring them together and have a mini-region afternoon tea or we often rely on them to host a morning tea, especially for the first responders who saved our coastal communities over these last few years. 

In our conversations – there is one phrase we always hear - it’s the mantra of the bush and you would all identify with it: ‘people here are resilient’.   Whilst that is true, it is something that we cannot and should not take for granted.   The regions are too important for the rest of the community to assume they will keep on surviving regardless.  

We need to be proud of the bush, we need to educate our city young people to take their skills to the bush in those aspects of which I have spoken  - health and education, youth support and industry – and to open them up to the joy of waking up every day knowing that something wonderful is going on around them and that they can be part of that. 

We need to have our politicians from the bush listened to as they work tirelessly for their constituents.   And we need to have our wider community travel and engage with the beauty of the bush – just as they travel abroad. We too often forget our own backyard. 

I will finish before they turn the lights off on me with two observations and a story.  I said recently that there is never an occasion that I go to the bush that I don’t learn something.  When I am not deeply affected in some way by the experiences we have.  And when we want to work out where to go in this last 12 months - we’ll go back and look at that map.

Last month in Eugowra, I had the honour of attending an award ceremony in their new Multi-Purpose Centre. In 2022, this little town was almost wiped from the map during a once-in-a-thousand-year flood.

Being recognised at the ceremony were the many locals who, with the waters rising, put their lives in danger to save the lives of others. More than 30 locals—of all ages and all backgrounds—received Royal Humane Society of NSW bravery awards.

Children from the local primary school had written a song about the flood and the years of recovery afterward.

Oh the people of our town, we are mighty we are brave

We got up and looked around for the ones we had to save

We’re not going to give up, even on the hardest days

Together we will help each other stay

On the hardest day in Eugowra.

It sums up better than anything the spirit of Eugowra and, I would argue, all of rural NSW.

[1] Mr John Bennett OAM, President, Royal Agricultural Society of NSW

[2] The Honourable Tara Moriarty MLC, Minister for Agriculture, Minister for Regional New South Wales, and Minister for Western New South Wales, Parliament of NSW

[3] Major General Ana Duncan AM CSC, Commander Forces Command, Australian Army, and Host Officer.

[4] Commissioner Karen Webb APM, NSW Police Force