The following is in an edited version of Mr Seamus Mallon's address:
Looking back the scale of our achievements makes the mind boggle. For we emerged from the civil rights movement at the hardest of times.
We faced a unionist establishment determined to exclude us and a republican hardline determined to propel us into civil war.
And yet we saw the defeat of their failed philosophies: the supremacist politics that sets equals against each other; the political violence that tore brothers apart. Both were mirror images of each other and both were abject failures.
Delegates, 30 years on, the SDLP has overcome. Despite intimidation and discrimination we have remoulded Ireland in the shape of our vision, one of peace, justice and equality. Our new institutions of government - in the North and between North and South - reflect the thinking of John Hume. Gradually we are replacing partisanship with partnership and conflict with consent.
Those are John's ideas. We have had our ups and downs but we worked and we worked together. Whatever they write about John, and they will write much, don't forget the most important thing is that he is a good human being and it was my pleasure to have worked with him.
Our greatest achievement - to date - has been the Good Friday agreement. At first, with the Ulster Unionist Party, there was denial. The agreement didn't really mean what it said. Rather it meant what it didn't say on decommissioning. Then there was cherry-picking, the unionists liking a First Minister but not the inclusive executive.
Then there were attempts to block implementation. On police reform, on North-South co-operation, on human rights. Every procedural and delaying device - resignation, suspension, re- view - was to be used to weaken and deny integral parts of the agreement. And what is the result? A weakened and divided Ulster Unionist Party which has lost credibility with its own electorate, with its partners in government, and with the wider world.
Anti-agreement unionism has also shouted from the sidelines while being half-in, half-out of the process. Republicans, too, have attempted to shirk their obligations. The issue of decommissioning was settled by the agreement. It committed all participants to the total disarmament of all paramilitary organisations. That was what the agreement said. And that is what the people of Ireland, North and South, voted for.
The attempt to achieve police reform has been a remarkable saga. It was one of the most difficult and the most important debates that our party has had. Conference after conference we added to our proposals on police reform, and the Patten recommendations stem from that.
Through this past year, the SDLP has worked not only for the stability of our new institutions, but also for the stability of our society. We have long recognised that stability - and justice - could never be achieved without a new beginning to policing.
But unlike others, the SDLP did not trade in the tired old slogans of yesteryear. "Save the RUC". "Disband the RUC". Instead, we recognised the reality. Policing needed far-reaching, radical reform. Policing had to be with the community, and with its consent. We made this our goal. And we pursued it determinedly.
That is why we resisted any attempt to water down Patten's proposals. That is why we withstood all pressure against us.
By opposing the dilution of Patten, we knew that we were saving the institutions. For you cannot have government by consent and policing by coercion. The support of nationalists for policing had to be won. That required, in the words of the agreement, a service that was "fair and impartial accountable, free from partisan political control and representative of the society it polices". In short, it required the Patten report.
The breakthrough came at Weston Park. The British government agreed to new legislation. They provided the assurances that we sought on every issue: name; flag, badge, accountability and human rights.
Last year we said we would not settle for less than Patten. Last year we promised that if we got Patten, we would join the Policing Board. The SDLP is a party that keeps its word. We have the spirit and the substance of the Patten report. We have joined the Policing Board.
The challenge for this incoming generation will be to create an idealism for peace, for consent, and unity by agreement.
Our experience is there, our support is always going to be there, because we all share this vision of what our party set out to do, and we will continue to do it. And I for one am proud to have done it along with John Hume and my colleagues in the party to whom I pay tribute.