Cloncurry and District Annual Show Opening Remarks
by His Excellency The Honourable Chief Justice Paul de Jersey AC, Acting Governor of Queensland
13th June, 2009
State Member for Mt Isa, Mrs Betty Kiernan MP,
Mayor of Cloncurry Shire Council, Councillor Andrew Daniels,
Chief Executive Officer of Cloncurry Shire Council, Mr Craig Turnour,
President of the Cloncurry and District Show Society, Ms Christine Chaplain,
Members and Staff of the Cloncurry and District Show Society,
Distinguished Guests,
Ladies and Gentlemen,
Boys and Girls,
In the spirit of reconciliation and harmony we seek to foster throughout our State, I at once acknowledge the traditional owners of the land on which we gather, the Mittakoodi peoples and their descendants.
As Acting Governor of Queensland, it gives me great pleasure to be with the good people of Cloncurry this afternoon, for the opening of the Show. On this crisp, clear winter's day, the ruggedly beautiful landscape of the area is shown to best advantage. My wife Kaye and I are so happy for the opportunity to be here. Having spent our childhoods in country centres, including in my case Longreach, we are full of admiration for the friendliness and achievement of the people of the West, and your adherence to good traditional values. It is a great privilege to be with you. Her Excellency the Governor cannot be with us today, as she is in the United Kingdom, for official engagements with Her Majesty the Queen, and also, to promote our great State during the ‘G'Day UK' promotion. But she has asked me to pass on her very best wishes to you all.
This year, 2009, marks the sesquicentenary of the creation of our Colony, then State. This gives us pause to think about our past, and how Cloncurry and the surrounding district would have looked in those early days. We also recall the hard work put in by the pioneering families who opened the area up all those years ago.
That spirit of resilience continues to characterise the good people of Cloncurry. I congratulate you on your patience and responsibility in dealing with recent water problems: a worthy example for all Queenslanders. And I commend the Mayor and the Council for so effectively overcoming that problem.
Reading about the discovery and settlement of Cloncurry is fascinating! First put on the map by explorers Burke and Wills, it was Robert O'Hara Burke who named the Cloncurry River after one of his relatives, Lady Elizabeth Cloncurry of County Galway in Ireland, and the town later adopted the name of the River as its own.
The region's history has been charted through the pursuit of treasure - first of all gold and copper, then pastoral lands and cattle-raising country which became the foundation for the new boom industries: beef and minerals, ‘the Curry's' invaluable staples. Cloncurry has also been the setting for some of Queensland's most important and emblematic developments - it played a pivotal role in two Queensland institutions - QANTAS and the Royal Flying Doctor Service. Its importance as the ‘gateway to the North-West' cannot be over-stated.
Since those early days, Cloncurry has grown and evolved, and local industries have learned to adapt to necessary changes and to attract newcomers and fresh industries to the town. Over the past 30 years, the Cloncurry and District Show has been a constant in all of this, a great source of justified regional pride.
The Show offers a neat slice of wonderful country life - a meeting place for past, present and future. The Show affords a time for local celebration, a precious opportunity for the community to gather and present at its best - with the finest livestock, culinary feats, arts and craft and bush tucker. And there are also those unique, somewhat offbeat events you would find nowhere else, like the homebrew competition, the ‘ringer's rally' and the ‘demo derby'. While I might sample the homebrew, my attention to the ‘ringer's rally' and the ‘demo derby' will be as observer only.
I warmly commend the Cloncurry and District Show Society, your executive, many loyal volunteers, competitors, judges and exhibitors whose enthusiasm, talent and hard work ensure the event is such a great success. Thank you for making this significant investment in your community and its future.
Ladies and Gentlemen, it is now my great pleasure to declare the thirtieth, the 2009 Cloncurry and District Show, open.
Thank you.