Saturday 31 May 2025

Delivered on Her Excellency’s behalf by Honorary Aide-de-Camp Flight Lieutenant Adam Lo OAM

On behalf of all Queenslanders, I am honoured to acknowledge the enduring contribution of Australia’s defence personnel, police and civilians to international peace since 1947.

For 78 consecutive years, Australians have served under the blue flag of the United Nations in more than 30 countries — from the first mission in what is now Indonesia, to long deployments on the Korean peninsula and in Cyprus. Closer to home, they have played leading roles in stabilisation efforts in Bougainville and the Solomon Islands. Today, Australian peacekeepers continue this work in conflict zones including South Sudan and the Sinai.

In an increasingly interconnected world, conflict no longer respects borders. Wars in other regions of the world may seem distant, yet their ripple effects — from economic disruption to displacement and forced migration — invariably reach our shores.

In this climate of uncertainty, the work of peacekeepers remains not only globally important, but personally relevant to us all.

We must also acknowledge that peace is more than the absence of war — it is a process of rebuilding, healing and preventing future conflict. And Australia’s peacekeepers — military, police and civilian — continue to play a quiet but powerful role in that process.

Those who serve often face danger, hardship and complex political realities. Of the 65,000 Australians who have served, many have returned bearing the visible and invisible scars of their duty. Some have not returned at all.

Today’s ceremony honours their service and sacrifice. I thank the Queensland Division of the United Nations Association of Australia for its efforts to ensure their legacy is remembered.

As we mark the International Day of UN Peacekeepers, let us honour them by reaffirming our shared responsibility to pursue a more peaceful and just world.

Representing the Premier – Minister for Youth Justice and Victim Support and Minister for Corrective Services, the Honourable Laura Gerber MP and Minister for Housing and Public Works, Minister for Youth, the Honourable Sam O’Connor MP; Bravehearts Chair, Ms Vanessa Garrard and Board Members, CEO Ms Alison Geale, and Ambassador in Chief Mr Bob Atkinson AO APM; distinguished guests; ladies and gentlemen.

Thank you, Aunty Kathryn Fisher for your warm welcome to country. I too would like to begin by acknowledging the Original Custodians of the lands around Brisbane, the Turrbal and Jagera people, and pay my respects to Elders past, present and emerging, and to all First Nations people here tonight.

I am very pleased to be with the generous supporters of Bravehearts once again for this important annual fundraising event and, as Patron, I take this opportunity at the outset to congratulate and thank everyone involved in planning and managing this event. It makes a vital contribution to Bravehearts funds, but even more importantly, it helps raise community awareness of the organisation and its goals, and keeps the spotlight firmly focussed on the issue of child sexual abuse.

In its determination to prevent child sexual abuse, Bravehearts is following the centuries-old precedent set by the outspoken men and women who first advocated for the rights of children during the Industrial Revolution.

They, too, were ‘brave hearts’, and as a result of their efforts, for the first time, child-labour laws were introduced and children were protected from abuse and neglect. Prominent champions included Charles Dickens who used his novels to reveal the uncomfortable reality of life for the children sent to work in England’s factories and mines. Sadly, two hundred years after Dickens introduced us to characters like the abusive Fagin in Oliver Twist, such exploitation continues––but there has been progress.

First, the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child was introduced in 1989, followed within a decade by Queensland’s Child Protection Act, and in 2015 by the UN agenda for sustainable development which included the bold goal to end “abuse, exploitation, trafficking, and all forms of violence and torture against children”.

The Australian Government’s response to repeated and growing calls for action from activists like Bravehearts and the community at large was the landmark, five-year national inquiry into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse and its 400 recommendations.

The report of the Royal Commission in 2017 put a strong focus on the need for legal reform, better-funded services for victims and their families, and the creation of a national framework to enable greater collaboration between State and Federal governments.

For almost 30 of those 35 years of progress, Hetty Johnston and Bravehearts have been there, campaigning and lobbying tirelessly, helping children, their parents and the community at large to better understand the reality and extent of child sexual abuse and the critical importance of appropriate support services.

It has not always been a supportive environment and there have been many setbacks and frustrations, but the key to the success of Bravehearts has been its tenacity and its determined focus, since 1996, on its core mission of raising awareness and funds for the prevention and treatment of child sexual abuse.

As a Queenslander, I am enormously proud of the national leadership role Bravehearts has played. And, as Governor and Patron, on behalf of all Queenslanders, I congratulate and thank the Board, the staff, the volunteers, the donors, the generous government and corporate partners, and the extraordinary team of more than 30 Ambassadors who are out there in the community and on social media, every day, ensuring that the voice of Bravehearts––and of vulnerable children––is heard.