NFL Gala Dinner

Good evening, and welcome to Government House.

It is a particular pleasure to welcome representatives and friends of the National Football League to Melbourne, particularly those from the Los Angeles Rams and the San Francisco 49ers and team alumni and legends to this State Ballroom.

Just two days ago we marked the 150th anniversary of the first official function held here at Government House.

That occasion was the Queen’s Birthday Ball of 1876, when some 1,700 guests gathered in this room to celebrate the birthday of Queen Victoria.

As you look up at the chandeliers, you can imagine how those first guests would have been filled with wonder.

It says something about the wealth and ambition of what was then the colony of Victoria.

At 42 metres long, or just under 138 feet for our American friends, this Ballroom is longer than the one at Buckingham Palace.

In a new colony, not much more than 20 years old, with a population of just over 813,000 (with a quarter of a million in Melbourne), the scale of this room reflected the optimism and confidence of a young and rapidly growing Victoria.

It was this untethered audacity that saw these young colonists build this – the largest Government House in the Southern Hemisphere.

This year marks 250 and 125 years respectively since the United States and Australia found their beginnings as independent nations.

And across that time, we have grown from youthful fearlessness to a belief that our experience shows we can take an idea and make it our own.

What other countries would be so bold as to invent their own national games and, to the annoyance of the rest of the world, insist on calling them football?

But that confidence is about more than simply doing things our own way.

We should not mistake these locally developed ambitions for parochialism.

What is the point of having such a great house with a grand ballroom, such a vibrant cultural scene, or such a world-class sporting precinct if you don’t share them with others?

Victorians are proud of our major events not because we enjoy them here (and we do), but precisely because they bring others to experience them with us.

And in doing so, we share not only these experiences, but cultures, ideas and opportunities as well.

Soon, many of you here tonight will be part of history when the first NFL regular season game in the Asia-Pacific is played to a crowd of one hundred thousand, and to millions more around the world, at our beloved MCG – the Melbourne Cricket Ground.

For our visitors from across the Pacific, I know all too well that on visits like these, among the whirlwind of engagements, it is often hard to find a moment of spare time to explore a new place.

So, we thought we would instead bring some of it to you.

Now, it is a truth universally acknowledged that the relationship between a chef and their kitchen is sacred.

So, I wanted to say how grateful I am that our wonderful Head Chef of 24 years, Robert Harris, stepped aside this evening to permit some of Victoria’s leading restaurateurs to create tonight’s cuisine.

Visit Victoria and Food and Drink Victoria have brought renowned chefs Andrew McConnell, Dan Hunter, and Karen Martini together to showcase some of our State’s finest produce.

This is accompanied too by a musical performance by Emma Donovan with Ben Edgar – both fine examples of Australian talent.

As you bring the best of the NFL to Melbourne, we hope we can show you the best of Victoria in return and – we hope – give you every reason to visit us again.

Thank you.