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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS OMITTED

Thank you for bringing everyone together across the clans and to bring your law to us to this very important ceremony.  

I pay respect to your people, to the Yolgnu and Rirratjingu peoples as the traditional custodians of this land that we are meeting on. And I acknowledge your elders past and present, and I acknowledge all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people who are joining us here today for this very solemn and important ceremony.  

I also want to welcome all of you today. You are all distinguished guests at an event like this. Every one of you is distinguished. Perhaps some of you have a more important role today, those that are becoming Australian citizens today, and your family and friends and any of those who've supported you in your citizenship journey.  

It's a real joy for Simeon, my husband, and for me to be here with you today. The Northern Territory and this part of Australia have been a special part of our family's life. Simeon and our daughter, Lotte, who's now 25, and I have so often been welcomed onto these lands. First, my husband, when he was just out of university, he was a young lawyer, and he worked with the central land Council in Alice Springs. It was a formative time for him, working in remote Aboriginal communities, and he has continued to have those relationships with those communities in the many, many years since.

I've visited this part of the world many times to attend the Garma festival, as many Australians have, and I served on the Reconciliation Australia board for many years, alongside many of the Yolgnu people who have served on that board over many years.  

When we've come here, we've always come to listen and to learn, and today, it is no different. We've always been welcomed, as we have been today, with generosity and kindness, and today that kindness is well and truly on show.  

Now, as your Governor-General, I have very important ceremonial functions to perform. One of them includes presenting outstanding Australians with honours and awards and presiding over citizenship ceremonies, as I will do today. Yesterday in Rockhampton, south of here, I was very privileged to preside over an extremely rare ceremony: I invested the late private Richard Norden with the Victoria Cross for Australia. That's our nation's highest military honour, and it was given to him for his extraordinary gallantry and bravery in combat in Vietnam in 1968. Now sadly, after he survived Vietnam and went back to the ACT, started a young family and joined the ACT police, two days into that job, he was catastrophically injured in an accident and subsequently died. He died very young. He died as a 24-year-old and left a very young family, and yesterday, he became one of only 102 Australians who have received the Victoria Cross, and only five who received that for their extraordinary bravery in the Vietnam conflict.  

Tomorrow, importantly for Yolgnu people, on the ceremonial grounds at the Gumatj office, I have another significant honour to perform. I will invest the late Dr Yunupingu with the Companion of the Order of Australia. That's Australia's highest award in our national honours system. It will be a very moving ceremony. There will be a Bungul, I'm sure, and a tribute to one of our country's greatest leaders. Sadly, he's no longer with us, but we're presenting that medal to his family and his community. And then today, I've come to this very, very important ceremony, one of the most important that I do as your Governor-General.

You've arrived here from seven countries, Fiji, France, Germany, Nepal, New Zealand, the Philippines and the United States of America, and you are from every age and stage of life. It's an honour to welcome you to the chapter of your lives as Australian citizens.  

Now, citizenship ceremonies are always filled with very tender and powerful moments of family and friendship and belonging. They are uplifting, inspiring. And I hope for those who become citizens today, you feel that they are expressive of the modern Australia that you are now joining. Even my husband, Simeon, came from somewhere else. He was born in New Zealand, and I was with him when he took his citizen ceremony in the office of the then Minister of Immigration back in 1994 and I know how much it meant for him and his family when he took citizenship.  

And so for all of us, these ceremonies are an important part of the civic life of our nation. They are an opportunity to formally and officially welcome you as new citizens of Australia. You've chosen to live and work here, to grow your families and invest the best of yourselves in this place, in this country; you will play many different roles in your communities. I'm sure some of you may have decided to take on responsibilities in your local government, or even as representatives in state and federal governments. Who knows what you might do? The opportunities here are endless, but I do hope you'll feel a sense of pride and belonging as you exercise the extraordinary privileges and responsibilities of your Australian citizenship. Now, in my first year as your Governor-General, I've been honoured to witness profoundly moving citizenship ceremonies right across the country. In Canberra, at Old Parliament House in August, in North Sydney in November, on the shores of Canberra’s Lake Burley Griffin on Australia Day this year, and again on that same day, on the lawns of Admiralty House in Sydney. Most recently, I've been in Hornsby in Sydney to perform a ceremony. And I look forward to many more of these over the course of my term. As you'll find today, each ceremony retells uniquely and powerfully the mighty, braided story of our country. You just saw a big part of it: 65,000 years of the world's longest continuous culture shared with us, always so generously by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.

It means so much here on this land and to all who come here to understand how important this part of the country is for that story, and joined to that in the strong and free democratic institutions we celebrate and work so hard to preserve. Of course, I represent one of those as Governor-General, as part of the crown, the parliament, the government, the Commonwealth Government, and the ability to confirm citizenship. And then there's Australia's modern chapter of optimism, of belonging and of progress, which is absolutely underpinned by remarkable multiculturalism. Over half a century for this country of immigration and refugee arrivals, it's almost seven-and-a-half-million migrants, and later this year, I don't know what day it will happen on, if it'll happen before Christmas, we will welcome the one millionth refugee to Australia. Citizenship ceremonies are a beautiful representation of the spirit of welcoming and belonging in this country, and they are very much founded on the values of care, kindness and respect, and I believe they are the values deeply ingrained in the character of modern Australia. You are going to bring your gifts of culture, history, language and heritage to enrich our communities. You've been doing it already, I'm sure, as you've chosen your path to citizenship, and you are part of the future of this country as a modern, diverse, optimistic and successful nation.  

I do hope that you feel the warmth of the welcome from all of us because you belong here. We are stronger as a country with you, and I want to congratulate you on establishing this new chapter of your life in Australia as Australian citizens. I hope it's filled with joy, success, much love and deep engagement with our communities.