28 November 2018, Sydney, Australia
I’ve got my speech in my shoe.
I had nowhere else to put it.
I’ve had the same roadie for thirty years. My best mate Worm. He’s not a musician, he’s not a singer, he’s not musical, one day he said to me, a long time ago, I got a line for you for a song, you can have it if you want. ‘Barricades and brick walls won’t keep me from you’.
I basically owe my whole career to my roadie, Worm.
I wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for Worm and his wife Bern, they’re my two best friends.
I think the two main things I’ve learned about how to survive in the music business is: always I have be true to yourself; and
To Find your tribe.
And I think your real tribe will always encourage you to be true to yourself, and won’t try to change you into something that you’re not.
And I have just had the most amazing tribe that you could possibly imagine.
My mum and dad, the two best role models that anybody could ever ask for, my Mum’s down there, she’s the most inspiring woman that I know, my mum has basically taught me over the years that being a bitch doesn’t make you strong and being strong doesn’t make you a bitch.
To know the difference, to know the difference.
You can be strong and kind at the same time.
My dad up there, the best advice my dad ever gave me, was ‘just don’t be dickhead’. I know it doesn’t sound very profound, but it actually has been the best advice to follow.
Seriously, you don’t need to be a dickhead to get ahead in this business.
You really don’t.
You don’t have to drag other people down to get ahead in this business. Don’t even worry what everyone else is doing. Just do your own thing and try not to be a dickhead about it.
Maliga Hodge, it’s such an honour to work with you for over 20 years, you’re my voice of reason. You’re so inspiring to work with every day. You’re so inspiring to me as a woman, and a mother, and I hope we’ll get another twenty years together, if you’ll put up with me.
My big brother Nash, you pick me up whenever I fall down. You drag me back down whenever I get my head too far up in the clouds. But you always walk beside me, you always have, and I just love you and Ronnie with all my heart, it really is as much yours, this Hall of Fame, as it is mine., So thank you.
Lastly my three greatest creations with the help of Cossie and Shane, my three kids Talon, Arlo and Poet.
Not only do you guys put up with the crazy life that we’ve given you but you also really embrace it, and enhance it. God knows you challenge it, but … I’m so proud to be your mum, I really am, and I hope that at the end of the day I have just inspired you to find something in your life that makes you feel alive, and work really hard, and always be true to yourself, and in the words of my greatest musical influence, just don’t be a dickhead!
Thank you, I never thought I’d be standing uyp here on a stage gertting something like this, honestly. I started out as a little girl around a campfire singing country songs on the Nullabor Plain. I am so proud to have become a strong woman. in the music industry.
But I don’t think I’m standing up here because I’m a strong woman.
I don’t think I’m standing up here in spite of being a strong woman either.
I actually think i’m standing up here because I’m just myself, and I think that’s all that any of us ever need to be.