TONY BURKE MP, MINISTER FOR THE ARTS: First of all, to Uncle Charles “Chicka” Madden. Thank you so much for the Welcome to Country. Reminding us of what always was and always will be and may we never lose sight of the fact that the word welcome is the most generous of words of all and I hope the nation over time can return that same level of generosity that you give every time you give a welcome to country. 

I have been in Australia for about 15 minutes tonight so I’m sorry that I missed the very beginning. But to John Kaldor and we have a couple of former Arts Ministers, Don Harwin and Ben Franklin in the room. I'm invested in always paying respect to former Arts Ministers, I hope to be one maybe in 30 years’ time, and to Thomas for the extraordinary work that we're about to experience.

The reason that I turned everything upside down to make sure I was here is because of John Kaldor. 

I first became Australia's Arts Minister in 2013. I had hoped to become Arts Minister. My two passions were arts and the environment, I happened to arrive in the same election as Peter Garrett, so I thought, it was unlikely that would happen. 

When I finally got the Environment portfolio, Simon Crean had grabbed the Arts. There was a little bit of instability in that government over the years, and there was one media conference where my dear friend Simon was the Arts Minister at the start of the media conference and wasn't by the end of the media conference. 

I'd been Arts Minister for probably less than a week and I get told, look, there's a booking that Simon had already made to go to something called 13 Rooms, and you should go. 

I went down to Walsh Bay and all of a sudden, I discovered that art was something beyond my understanding of music, of theatre, of poetry, of the different art forms that I loved, because all of a sudden I learnt about immersion. 

I learnt as I walked in that there was a human turnstile, and I was somehow part of the work that was happening. I walked into another room and traded the card that I didn't want for a pen that I did want and started to think, hang on, is that person the artwork or are all of us part of what's happening? I had to physically lie down to look inside a room where the artist with disability was in a world where they did not fit and I learnt about immersion. 

I went to a room of white walls where an actual veteran was the person staring deep into the corner, and realised that art had an entire universe beyond everything that I'd experienced up until that point. 

I started to look at everything that John Kaldor did, whether it was here not that long ago with Loopy Doopy, whether it was what Jonathan Jones did which changed Sydney forever. Most of us never even knew that there'd been an exhibition building for Sydney, and yet the perimeter of it was suddenly mapped out with coolamons in white resin. All those First Nations objects, so important to Jonathan's own history, so much had been destroyed. And yet, once the perimeter was mapped out, the round garden, none of us understood why there was a round garden there in the middle of the Botanic Gardens, but suddenly with kangaroo grass we were told that's actually the exact location where the dome was for the Federation building. Then, out of the trees and out of everywhere you stood within the perimeter, those First Nations languages spoke back to you and a building that had only lasted a year, got to live again. When those coolamons were removed, having sat for weeks and weeks and weeks on the grass, the markings were there after the artwork had been removed. 

People who went right at the start. I never saw the work, although Skye and I chose to be married just next to Little Bay, because of course the work there of Christo and Jeanne-Claude, the concept of gift wrapping an entire coastline. But John's work on coastlines didn't finish there. After Guantanamo Bay, we were taken to 21 Places on Bondi Beach where if you wanted access to a deck chair, you happened to find yourself on the beach inside a cell.

The immersion, the refusal to separate yourself from the work, the concept that the work is not something you can just put at a distance, it is something that will fill your entire universe in that moment – it's something that will take the most conservative colonial of buildings like a rotunda and turn it into an experience where the first contact with the First Nations as they were, in the complete prime position to see that flotilla arrive, becomes a place where the music that you hear calls the snare drum symbolising the flying foxes or fruit bats or whatever kind term we want to use, where those snare drums play themselves as they hear the music. Changing areas forever, immersing yourself in the work and now a collection which people would have viewed for so many years as discrete items – John says, well, not anymore.

An item by Sol Lewitt that we would have seen in the context of where we would have seen Loopy Doopy, where you have a concept where every time it's presented, by definition his work presents as something different every time, even though the mathematical precision is there each time. And now one of those works has created something new and magnificent because of what Thomas has done. To take works that each on their own is a priceless moment of interaction between whoever experiences it and the work and the genius of the artists themselves now turned into something collective and new that we are all about to immerse ourselves in.

There is an extraordinary gift that has been given to Australia by John Kaldor. John Kaldor has been brilliant. He said in his speech that art has changed his life and can I say to John, I hope on behalf of all of us, you have changed our understanding of what art is capable of, and for that, John, every single one of us is forever grateful to you. Thank you.

As I look out at the sea of faces, I know that a lot of people who are here are not of my world of being people who spend their lives simply appreciating a working genius. Many of you are the creators yourselves – as your Arts Minister I want to also pay tribute to you. Thank you for what you do. It challenges, sometimes your work is difficult. Sometimes your work turns great controversy. Every time, your work gives us feelings and emotions and thoughts that are only possible because of your creativity. We honour you and I can't wait for us to move into the next room to be able to experience the next piece of genius, Number 38, John Kaldor. Thank you.