Speech delivered on Thursday 21 May 2026 at Exhibition Park in Canberra

Good morning, everybody. How are you all? I wish you could see what I can see. It's wonderful to see so many people who really are the lifeblood of this community, and as Katie has done, I also acknowledge that we're on Ngunnawal and Ngambri land and pay my respects to elders past and present.

There's also a few people I would very much like to acknowledge: Margaret Paxton-Rolfe, life member and founder of Canberra Quilters, and all the other life members who are here today, some of whom I know have flown in especially for today. It's very special for me to be here.

There are so many connections, and I'll speak about one in a moment. Sarah Fielke, the co-president of Quilt NSW, who we've discovered I've actually met before, and whose dad I used to work for, so there are connections everywhere. Sarah, it's wonderful to see you. I didn't know there was quilting in the cousins' family, so it's nice to know that.

Katie, the current president of Canberra Quilters, and Bev Langdon, past president, who both of you sent an invitation to me, probably without realizing just how crafty a person I am, and how important it was for me to come along.

Glynn Singleton, Managing Director of Bernina Australia, I know you've been a long-time supporter of quilting, and whenever I see a Bernina, I think of my lovely late mum. There was always a Bernina sewing machine — she wasn't a quilter, but she was a sewer — and Berninas were part of my childhood in the sewing room in every house we lived in.

Brett Dowling, the event director of CraftAlive, Australia's largest craft event series, 34 years of craft fairs across Australia. You've helped to set up today's exhibition, as well as your wife Sally.

And really importantly, the 50th celebration planning committee: Wendy Sackler, Christine Stewart, Elaine White, Megan Clark, and Debbie Edwards — I think you need a big round of applause.

All the members of Canberra Quilters — it's lovely to see you all here today. Congratulations on this outstanding exhibition. It's truly beautiful, and on your 50th birthday, I'm so delighted to be here.

I would have been 10 when you started, because this is my 60th year, so I feel like I've been with you along the way. And of course, you are the oldest patchwork group in Australia.

I did also notice in one of the glorious gold challenge quilts my early home in Curtin is commemorated with a little pair of scissors as the starting place of Canberra Quilters — Curtin. I was a Southside girl, went to Curtin South Primary, so I looked at the little map and realized that there was a little bit of us in that quilt. So, congratulations, it's beautiful.

I also want to let you know that I dressed for you today. So, these patchwork pants — I wish I could say that I made them, but I did not.

But I support a small organisation in Sydney called The Social Outfit, and it's a group of women, around for 10 years, who have been supporting recently arrived refugee and migrant women who can sew, to make clothes and get their skills up so they can enter the fashion industry. All of the fabric is donated by major fashion houses, and they then turn them into clothes, so there's no landfill — the fabrics are used. And this is an Alémais — you know Alémais, the brand — made from fabrics that have been patched into these pants.

For 50 years, you've been a tight-knit community, but with a focus not just on your clever and creative sewing, but on genuine curiosity, welcoming, belonging, and generosity at the centre of all you've done.

As I said, I was born here in Canberra, so much of my growing up here. I'm the first Governor-General to be born in Canberra, and only the second woman to serve in the office after the wonderful Dame Quentin Bryce.

And I remember Canberra in the 70s. It was a creative place — you had to look for it — but it was a very creative place, and it now is even more so. It's a place, I think, that inspired art and artistry. The National Gallery being here, Rosalie Gascoigne was obviously collecting her beautiful works before anyone was paying attention. It was an extraordinary place to grow up in.

It was a time when community links were forming and strengthening. And back to Curtin — I remember when my parents bought their block of land in 1964, it was the furthermost suburb of Canberra, and they were told how mad they were for being so far away from Civic, and that they would always regret buying in Curtin.  

So it was a time when so many of you were doing important things. There were varied threads of the fabric of this city that were being formed to create new communities. That's another part.

Now mine was a military family — my dad was in the Australian Army — and there were many other families that were here only temporarily, and there were many that came as first generation to Canberra during that time. So, we've changed a lot.

And the neighbourhoods and suburbs that were brought together were generally by common interests, and I'm thinking that quilting and craft was such an important part of building those communities in those early days. Canberra Quilters, to me, represents the early days of that fabric of Canberra.

Now, in 2026, you've got hundreds of members. So many of you are here today, and so many creative outlets. You're not only sharing skills, building relationships, and building gorgeous quilts, you're also making and giving away quilts as an expression of exquisite care.

I love that — with quilts for others, using donated fabric. I think it's 250 every year for charities, children's organisations, and nursing homes, and women's and children's refuges. And sometimes when I visit those places, I see those quilts offering such incredible care and comfort.

And then through Blankets of Love, those anonymous gifts of beautiful small quilts that are given to families who've lost a newborn — again, I'm a patron of many of the organisations that receive those, and I know just how special that is.

These gifts that are made with such tender love and skill are given with incredible compassion and are truly priceless, and I think they embody the warmth and delicacy, the thoughtfulness and timelessness that makes us feel human and connected.

And last year I went to Gallipoli and represented everyone at Anzac Cove and gave the Anzac Day speech from Gallipoli. We took with us a special quilt that had sewn through poppies and stories of service in Australia, which we gave to the community of Çanakkale — the men and women who tend to the graves of Australian and New Zealand soldiers that are buried on that peninsula.

And it was a beautiful quilt made by a Defence quilting group, so there's quilters everywhere. And just a few months ago the men who we gave that to came back and visited Canberra, visited the War Memorial, and showed us the stories of the quilt wrapping their children in the freezing cold conditions of Gallipoli. So another example of where quilts make a huge difference.

I've also brought along a quilt that's a favourite in our family. This was the quilt I bought at my daughter's preschool in Sydney in 2004. Now it's not — it's a lovely quilt; it's been in all of our houses. The reason I bring it is — I'll just read you — the quilt was made by Avril Hart Reeves for the Broughton Street Kindergarten, January 2004, and it was a fundraiser for the little school that Lotte went to. And this has travelled with Lotte wherever she goes. Now she's 26.

Now it's not of the same quality of what we've been seeing here today, but I wanted to let you know how much quilting has mattered to my family and our wonderful displays and you.

So, when I was sworn in as your Governor-General, you may have heard me talk about this. I said I would put care, kindness, respect at the centre: care for each other, care for those who do the caring of others, care for our incredible environmental riches — otherwise known as care for country — care for our civics, our institutions, and the organisations that we put together, just like Canberra Quilters, and care for the way we discuss the really tough issues of our time, always with respect, never wrestling with the person but with the idea.

And so, for me, Canberra Quilters and everyone here is an exemplar of care and kindness and deep respect, particularly through the quilts that you give away, but also in how you care for each other as a strong Canberra community.

And I know this exhibition, which thousands of Canberrans will be coming to over the next few days, is going to be showcasing the care that everyone who comes and sees the work you've done right across the region.

I don't know if any of you know the American writer, Anne Lamott. She wrote a very famous book called Stitches: A Handbook on Meaning, Hope, and Repair, and she talks about quilting as a metaphor for life, and she says this:

“The secret of life is patch, patch, patch. Thread your needle, make a knot, find one place on the other piece of torn-off cloth, and make one stitch that will hold, and do it again and again and again… So, we stitch together quilts of meaning to keep us warm and safe with whatever patches of beauty and utility we have on hand.”

That's what I see in all of the quilts that I've seen this morning, and that are around the exhibition — the same stories of care, warmth, resilience, and great skill.

I hope you all feel very proud of these creations and inspired, if you haven't participated this year, to get your quilts in for next year.

Congratulations to every single one of you for this dedicated, beautiful work and this deep care for the community, which is often undervalued and overlooked. We'll bring great attention to your work.