National Trust Queensland Heritage Awards

Minister for the Environment and Tourism and Minister for Science and Innovation in Queensland, the Honourable Andrew Powell MP; Representing the Lord Mayor of Brisbane, Councillor Penny Wolff; National Trust Queensland President, Mr Mark Townend AM, Deputy President, Ms Glenys Schuntner and Directors; CEO, Ms Jayme Cuttriss; distinguished guests; ladies and gentlemen.

I begin by acknowledging the Original Custodians of the lands around Brisbane, the Turrbal and Jagera peoples, and pay my respects to Elders past, present and emerging, and to any First Nations people here this evening, and I thank Mr Joseph Ruska for the Welcome to Country.

It is my great pleasure to join you this evening, as Patron of the National Trust of Australia in this state, to honour outstanding achievements in heritage preservation and protection, through the Queensland Heritage Awards.

It seems fitting that we meet in the elegant surroundings of Tattersall’s Club, itself a state heritage-listed building. This has been a stylish location for business and hospitality, right in the heart of the capital, for over 140 years, and I thank management and staff for their signature warmth and elegant welcome.  

Tonight is a particularly special evening, as we gather to acknowledge excellence in conservation for the first time since 2019, when the awards were paused as a result of the COVID pandemic.  

As we honour the award winners here this evening, I’d also like to pay tribute to the leadership, staff, and volunteers right across the organisation, who have worked so diligently to rebuild and re-engage in our communities.  

It is indeed a night of celebration, and I know that some of you here tonight have travelled from across the state to mark the culmination of this year’s Queensland Heritage Festival.

As you know, the National Trust of Australia takes a broad, holistic view of what it means to preserve history. Rather than focusing on a single type of heritage, its branches work across the full spectrum of places, objects, and cultural meaning that shape Australia’s sense of identity.

This includes tangible heritage — from historic homes and significant bushland to Indigenous sites of deep archaeological and cultural importance — as well as intangible heritage, such as oral histories, shared traditions and advocacy that helps communities understand and protect the stories embedded in the places they inhabit.

The Queensland Heritage Awards reflect this, recognising outstanding achievement in the conservation, protection and interpretation of heritage across Indigenous, built, natural and cultural life.  

Delivered by organisations and community groups across the state, this work safeguards Queensland’s diverse heritage—often through complex and demanding efforts, from restoring sacred places and re‑purposing historic buildings to uncovering and preserving overlooked histories.

While the scope of preserving our cultural heritage is wide, the determination and resilience embodied within it is strikingly similar. It involves Queenslanders working together, sleeves rolled up (often literally), conscious that this is our collective story, our unique history.

It’s a history that is vitally important to us all, supporting, as it does, our tourism industry, the growth of our economy, the melding of our communities.

Of course, it’s particularly important for those who will follow us.

In securing and sharing an understanding of our past, future generations will come to know what has shaped us as Queenslanders.

The determination to protect, to continue to find ways to navigate the many challenges of engaging with the past, has brought us here tonight.

The Queensland Heritage Awards play a vital role in honouring the rich cultural value of our State, fostering pride in what it is to be a Queenslander, both now, and for generations to come.

I am honoured to be invited here tonight to present the John Herbert Memorial Award a little later.

Meanwhile, thank you for all that you do, and congratulations to tonight’s award recipients!