I would like to acknowledge the Dharawal people as the traditional custodians of the land that we are meeting on, and pay my respects to their Elders past, present and emerging.

I would also like to acknowledge my Parliamentary colleague and Member for Whitlam, Stephen Jones MP and the Mayor of Shellharbour Council Chris Homer. 

I would like to congratulate the Lawrence Hargrave Society and the HARS Aviation Museum on the work that has gone into this display. 

Celebration of Lawrence Hargrave has been a long process for so many people and still today we do not have an acknowledgement which really parallels the contribution that was made by him. 

For our local Illawarra community and across NSW there has been a constant pursuit of recognition, and not always an easy one. 

In 1939 NSW Senator Macartney Abbott recalled his personal experience with Hargrave:

“I very clearly remember the scepticism with which people regarded his experiments. I have no doubt that if he had said that one day men would fly in machines, nine-tenths of the people would have shaken their heads sympathetically and have suggested that Hargrave was just a mild lunatic. But the idea which Hargrave had in mind has become an accomplished fact.”

[Hansard Wednesday 6 September 1939]

In 1980 the then Member for Hughes, the Hon. Les Johnson MP fought for the restoration of the Hargrave family home in Stanwell Park. 

In his press release at the time, he said;

“For the people of the South Coast the Hargrave home and monument on the hill at Stanwell Park are the only remaining memorials to this great Australian Pioneer.”

I think Les would be pleased to know that this is no longer the case, particularly here in the Illawarra.

Hargrave encapsulates many characteristics of our distinctly Australian form of innovation, he was a man of foresight and imagination, working in comparative isolation with limited resources but yet was able to have his studies taken seriously in far off lands even when there was little interest at home.

The impact of his distinctive contribution can be seen by those who followed his work, one of whom was Alexander Graham Bell, the American inventor of the telephone, who visited Australia just to meet Hargrave.  Bell noted “Mr Lawrence Hargrave is better known in America than in his own country.”

It cannot be forgotten that Hargrave’s foresight was not just limited to concept of flight, he challenged Australia with ideas of an aesthetically designed bridge that could span Sydney harbour, the concept of child endowment as a way to aid population growth, the potential of Papua New Guinea, the need for greater humanity in indigenous affairs, the benefits of pooling information to accelerate technological development and even ideas for a League of Nations with it’s own peace keeping force. 

Concepts that are considered so necessary today but would be more than abstract 130 years ago.

I once again congratulate everyone who has contributed to this exhibition and in doing so contributing to the dilution of the anonymity which has surrounded an incredible Australian for far too long.