Reception in Honour of the Visit to Queensland of His Royal Highness The Duke of York, KG

It is a great pleasure to welcome all of our guests to Government House this evening. Kaye and I are particularly honoured to extend to His Royal Highness the Duke of York, the warmest of welcomes to our State of Queensland.

As Her Majesty’s current representative in Queensland, I must say I am very pleased tonight to welcome into our presence the 24th State Governor Dame Quentin Bryce, with Mr Michael Bryce, and out 23rd State Governor, Major General Peter Arnison, with Mrs Barbara Arnison.

The heritage of our State dates back only to 1901, although as a colony, it existed from 1859. But we rightly acknowledge, and with pride, that our Indigenous heritage stretches back tens of thousands of years, and for its continuing enriching effect, we remain most grateful.

Now the ‘Queen’ in Queensland is of course Queen Victoria, who brought the new colony into existence with a stroke of her pen in 1859.

But let us move back even earlier, to 1851, when Queen Victoria opened the Great Exhibition in London, bringing to fruition a project devised and energetically supported by the Queen’s Consort, Prince Albert.  

The astonishing massive iron and glass structure housing the Exhibition, the ‘Crystal Palace’, was made possible by new technology in cast iron and plate glass.

Moreover, the Great Exhibition gave many manufacturers the opportunity to show off their products to potential investors and consumers.

Moving forward 166 years, we are honoured to have a descendant of Queen Victoria visiting Queensland with an initiative which also encourages and supports innovation and entrepreneurship, at a time when our State is preparing to showcase our capability during the hosting of the Gold Coast 2018 Commonwealth Games.

His Royal Highness’s Pitch@Palace initiative, already highly successful internationally, responds to the way that enabling technology has changed the nature of business start-ups world-wide. It also recognises the expanding demographic of business entrepreneurs – the minimum age for participants is sixteen! 

I thank His Royal Highness for selecting Bond University in our State as the location of one of the Australian Pitch@Palace events.

There is great momentum in Queensland in the innovation space, as His Royal Highness will have seen today during the visit with our Premier and Minister Enoch to The Precinct in Fortitude Valley. 

The visit of His Royal Highness will not only boost the profile of entrepreneurship in our State, it also brings an international focus to Queensland and Gold Coast capability ahead of the Commonwealth Games.

And the great strength in the diversity of our capability is wonderfully reflected in the guests here tonight.

Your Royal Highness, it is Kaye’s and my great honour to once again thank you for honouring Queensland by your presence, as we tonight give further strength and substance to the industries and relationships which bring substantial benefits to the Queensland economy and to Queensland communities. Thank you.