Australia - this is what we've trained for.

What an incredible week!

I've just spent time getting to know the Australians of the Year from each of the nations states. Formidable, amazing people, please go and learn more about their work. Faith in humanity will be restored, I promise you, if only for a moment.

As part of the process they ask you to write your speech. Which is always a good way to reflect on a moment in time.

Here's mine. The thanks and reflection are relevant regardless of how this evening plays out:

Yuma, and thank you.

I used to ride my horse on this hill when I was a teenager. My sister and I would race to the top, right here, laughing, breathless, exhilarated. I felt on top of the world.

I feel the same way tonight, to receive this award on Ngunnawal Country. I acknowledge those who loved this country first and pay my respects to elders past, present and emerging.

Thanks to Ingrid, Jen Johnson, Callie Paul, Jen Kendell, Zoe, Becky and JW Jackson, Jesse and Chad, Duncan Rowland, Luke Wheat, Tom Loefler, Tom Farrugia, Sarah, Matthew, Kylie Frazer for the hug that changed everything, Tim Peek, Paul D'Agostino, The Goterra team - who never let your confidence dictate the lengths you'll go to make something happen.?And Eric, with you the world is painted in colours that don't exist.

I experienced a usual Australian childhood. Hot summers, freezing Canberra winters, lazy days under the sprinkler. The crackle of Christmas beetles under my pink huffy bike, the thump of Bogong Moths against the front verandah light.?

And all I wanted to be growing up, was a farmer.

Today I'm a farmer.

Just a different kind, because the Australia I knew as a child, the Australia I was counting on passing to my children, has changed.?There are no more Christmas beetles, and the bogong moth is struggling to thrive due to climate pressures.

In the beginning I was trying to create a feed that farmers could use, that wouldn't be impacted by successive 1 in 100 year weather events.

Maggots are an easy way to do that.?When they eat waste they reduce GHG emissions per tonne from 1700co2 eq to 35.?and they turn waste into protein that can be fed to livestock like poultry or fish.?All I had to do was figure out how I could automate that process so I could commercialise mother nature and maybe I could help save the world.

Saving the world and Climate change are interesting things.??

This is the crisis of our time, but it still feels so far away that we can find it hard to imagine it's a problem we need to worry about today.?

The thing about climate change, all of us need to understand is:?it's making it harder for farmers to make the food we eat and the produce we're so proud of exporting.?There's just too many bad years stitched together, too many once in a lifetime weather events happening one after the other.

It could be easy to believe that there's no hope.?I stand here today, at the dawn of the 7th year of this, the decisive decade and I am not alone, I am surrounded by the most formidable army of Australians doing the same work.?

Karin Stark a cotton farmer?Who started the National Renewables in Agriculture conf. so that farmers learn about energy transformation in Agriculture

Charlie Prell from Gundaringa out near Goulburn, and Farmers for Climate Action who represent the work of farmers across Australia to mitigate climate impacts and drive systemic change

The team at Hullbot in Sydney?- with the world's most sophisticated underwater robot that can clean a boat like you and I, clean our teeth which stops ocean pollution and reduces boat fuel use by 40%.

In Emerald, in QLD where the worlds most advanced on farm robotics company SwarmFarm Robotics , are reducing pesticide and fertiliser use and in turn improving soils and creating sustainability.

In Canberra where as we speak tonnes of food waste received at GOTERRA are being eaten by maggots?in the worlds first onsite autonomous food waste management infrastructure.

Our country has trained us to work hard, with her already sunburnt country, her drought and flooding plains. And of course,?as she has been designed, the fires.?

So - as a nation we know how to fight a crisis - my fellow Australians of the Year tell the stories of this work:

We deliver food to those ravaged by fires

we make space for mental health in the conversation

We give dignity to each other, in each stage of the human experience.

We know there is no colour, creed, gender or barrier when we need help, we accept and we welcome and we include.

We know to look to our first nations to guide, to teach us about country.

We collaborate, we innovate, we fight, we solve.

The fires are so bad now that some growth isn't coming back, and some floods haven't stopped, and likely the droughts will be tougher - if that's possible.?

We're ready.?because we still know how to work through, pull through and innovate together. There is no other country more ready for this fight, no people more resilient to weather challenges, or more ready to innovate and save the world like our lives depend on it.

They call me a climate warrior.?But I'm just like you.?An ordinary Australian doing the work that needs to be done,?

to help,?

to survive,?

to make Australia a better place.

onward I say.

I'll see you all at work.?