Farewell to Queensland

These things put us in our place, not in a confining or controlling way, but in a way that helps us to see the continuity, the richness and diversity of daily life, its part in our past, the present, and future. They give us some sense of the patterns and the departures, the letting go of the old and the taking up of the new. They instruct us on how we’ve grown and where our branches are taking us. They can make us feel proud, they can make us feel ashamed. They are our signals and our touchstones.

Oodgeroo was looking for some sense when she wrote her poem, Civilisation, in the 60s, a poem that she said got her into a lot of trouble. Part of it goes like this:

We could not understand
Your strange cult of uniformity
This mass obedience to clocks, timetables …
… all the new wonders,
Stocks and shares … sales and investments.
… Suddenly caught up in white man’s ways
Gladly and gratefully we accept,
For this is necessity.
But remember, white man,
If life is for happiness,
You too, surely, have much to change.

Oodgeroo didn’t say what she thought “happiness” is, but perhaps she was suggesting that it is derived from something outside our transactional economy, away from the commodities we trade: the stuff that fuels our spirit, that allows us to be open and generous, to see what matters and to take care of it, to restore whole communities, not something we acquire and spend, rather, a gift that endures and replenishes.

When we choose to see happiness in this way - not insular or indulgent or smug - it becomes a fine and wonderful instrument of change.

My friends, in my time as Governor I have seen a great deal of happiness at work.

In our women’s shelters, youth services, hospitals, churches, universities, kindergartens and classrooms.

As the dawn breaks on Anzac Day.

In our courtrooms, shire chambers and parliament.

As elders gather under paper barks on distant banks.

In our respite houses whose only resources are human toil and love.

At our international conferences.