“Ladies over 40 are still in the game. We will decide when it is time for us to stop.”
And with that music queen Tina Arena had her audience at the ARIAs in the palm of her jazz hands.
After absolutely killing it in a live performance of her smash hit ‘Chains’, Arena then went on to be inducted into the ARIA Hall of Fame by her friend and fellow music legend, Kylie Minogue.
You can watch the amazing performance featuring The Veronicas and Jess Mauboy here:
“What a woman, what a voice,” Minogue said after the performance which had the whole audience dancing on their feet.
“Wow, oh my goodness, surely I’m not the only person who had goosebumps,” she said.
But it was Arena’s speech afterwards that really had the audience jumping up and down.
“I want to acknowledge the women in their 40s still in the game in a big way…We will decide when it’s time for us to stop.”
She called on commercial radio to “continue to support Australian music on the quality of the song and not the age of artist” and “don’t meet your Australian quotas because you have to. Exceed them because you want to.”
She also hit out at the ageism which greets female pop artists, calling out Madonna, Jennifer Lopez, Annie Lennox and Kylie for their continued excellence in the face of discrimination.
She pleaded with her audience to ‘respect the arts’. “Because without the music we are really all screwed,” she said to rapturous applause.
