Judith Wright may well be one of the greatest Australians who has lived. She made, perhaps, one of the greatest contributions to our society. I want to do an extraordinarily politically incorrect thing. I want to quote from Martin Heidegger, the German philosopher. He said, and I suspect most of us would agree as we look around ourselves, particularly in this town and in this country at the moment, that we live in a destitute time.
Death withdraws into the enigmatic.
The mystery of pain remains veiled. Love has not been learned. But the mortals are. They are, in that there is language. Song still lingers over their destined land, still reminding us of the nature of pain, death and love.