It's a great privilege and an honour to have the experiences and opportunities that I do to meet extraordinary Australians right across our country who share a great generosity of spirit.
We all go back to our roots. My father went to the central west, went to Ilfracombe in 1919. He was the manager of the wool scour there. And, Ilfracombe was right at the heart of Australia's great wool industry, and my mother was a teacher at Winton.
For a very long time now I've been saying to young women, 'You can have it all, but not all at the same time.' How important it is to take very good care of yourself, of your mental and physical and spiritual wellbeing; it's hard to do. It's easier to be a workaholic than to have a truly balanced life.
My mother played the piano and my father the violin, I can remember my dad teaching me how to waltz; I had my feet on his, my mother playing the piano, and my husband will tell you the lessons weren't very successful.
The Australian way of affirmative action is setting goals and recognising discrimination and lack of opportunity and deciding to take action and setting some goals and targets. I guess I prefer that language to talking about quotas.
One of the most enjoyable things I do at Government House and when I travel around Australia is to talk with children. I tell them about our parliamentary democracy - and I often do that as I'm walking into an Executive Council meeting next door!
