E&OE..........................................................................................
Thank you very much Solomon, to your wife Rosie, to Mr and Mrs Lanzer,
Mr and Mrs Baker, the School Principal Mr Ruben and his wife and the
many other guests and friends of the Mt Scopus College.
It is an honour for me to share this very important celebration. 50
years of achievement of any organisation is always a milestone and
something to be grateful for. But the 50 years that your community
has traversed has been no ordinary 50 year period. IT is difficult
for somebody in my position to fully conceive of the hurdles and the
obstacles that the very small Jewish community of Melbourne must have
faced 50 years ago in embarking on this endeavour. With many of its
members having passed through the unbelievable experience of the earlier
years of that decade.
And yet 50 years later this school and this community can boast many
things. It can boast the largest Jewish day school not only in Australia
but I understand in the Southern Hemisphere. It can boast of outstanding
scholastic achievement which is seen as one of the consistently best
three performers of Melbourne schools in VCE examinations. But most
importantly it can boast of having made a wonderful, cultural and
spiritual contribution to the life of the Jewish community here in
Melbourne and throughout Australia.
We celebrate together tonight a number of things. First and foremost,
can I say that we celebrate a very important belief of the entire
Australian community. It's a very important personal belief of
my own and it's a very important belief of the party and the
Government that I lead. And that belief is in the absolute right of
every Australian parent to determine the character and the value system
of the education that their children receive. And that right of parental
choice lies at the heart of good education policy. It's a policy
that recognises the need for choice and variety within the education
system. We need a strong government education system. As someone myself
who is a proud and unapologetic product of the government school system
in New South Wales, as someone who chose both government and independent
schools for the education of my own children, as someone who has argued
consistently all of his political life for the maximum degree of freedom
of choice, I think it is important on an occasion such as this to
emphasise the centrality of that principle of freedom of choice. And,
of course, exercising that choice is particularly important for a
community such as your own. You are able through the tremendous support
that you give to schools like Mt Scopus, along with government assistance,
you are able to preserve in a special and a very effective way your
own distinctive culture and your own beliefs. But you do it as an
integral part of the Australian community. You are practising the
preservation of what is dear and special to you but you are doing
it in a way which continues to contribute to and enrich the overall
character of Australian life.
Australia is the beneficiary of a plural system of education. Just
as I don't believe in monopolies in commerce I don't believe
in monopolies in education. I don't believe that the State has
a right to monopolise the provision of education. I believe that certain
educational standards laid down and required of all schools are reasonable.
But beyond that the value system, the spiritual beliefs, the cultural
heritage that is taught within those schools is ultimately available
to those Australian parents who seek to exercise a choice in the education
of their children. And this school has done it in a most remarkable
way. And it is an enormous tribute to the Jewish community of Melbourne,
it's a remarkable tribute to the strength and the resilience
and the sense of family that has been a hallmark of the Jewish community
in Australia. And as Solomon said, I have been an unashamed and unapologetic
friend of Israel and of the Jewish community in Australia all of my
public life and my affection for the Jewish people and my association
with them long pre-dated my entry into politics.
And what has been achieved by Australian Jews in all walks of life
is truly remarkable. They have preserved their distinctive Jewish
characteristics and beliefs but they have done so as true and straight
and stalwart Australians and the loyalty and the commitment of the
Jewish community to the overall national interest of the Australian
community has been quite remarkable. I am, therefore, particularly
pleased to be here tonight.
I want to honour the tremendous commitment of Solomon Lew and his
wife Rosie to this cause of this school. I want to honour all of you
for the fact that you have been prepared to support something that
adds enormous value to the life of a nation. Any school that teaches
the values of the spirit, as well as sheer academic achievement, any
school that seeks to combine the values of the spirit, education,
sporting and other endeavours is adding enormous value to the Australian
community.
We have many gifts in this country, but we are a nation ultimately
that will continue to survive and continue to do well if we use and
nurture our intellectual capital to the maximum possible extent. We
are only 18.5 million people and we inhabit a vast continent and increasingly
as the years go by and we move into the 21st century we will have
rely more and more on the use and the effective application of our
intellectual capital. And in so many fields of human endeavour that
intellectual capital is quite remarkable. And the community of Mount
Scopus by dint of what it stands for and by dint of the men and women
that have graduated from the college is playing a very significant
role in it.
Ladies and gentlemen I salute your achievement. I salute the contribution
of the Jewish community of Melbourne to the life, not only of the
Australian Jewish community, but the life of the broader Australian
community. I recognise and continue to uphold the importance of the
links that exist between Australia and the state of Israel. It is
an old friendship, nurtured in more difficult times but preserved
through the years in the face of changing political fashion and changing
political attitudes. There is great affection in Australia for what
Israel has achieved. There is great admiration for the triumphs of
over great adversity and great difficulty and great hostility by such
a small country. There is a recognition of the tremendous generosity
of the people of Israel over the years to so many immigrants from
all around the world.
I, as Prime Minister, am immensely proud of the tolerance and the
diversity of the Australian community. We have welcomed people from
more than 150 nations. It is a remarkable achievement. It is a tribute
to the decency and the honourability of the average Australian and
we have done it in a very remarkable and a very harmonious fashion.
And it's an opportunity such as this, people coming together
as part of a vibrant community here in the city of Melbourne to celebrate
the joy of living in Australia in 1999 and the expectation of continuing
to enjoy the benefits of our nation and our society as we move into
the 21st century.
I congratulate the Mount Scopus community. I thank it for the contribution
that it is making to the education of the young men and women of the
Jewish community here in Melbourne and I especially honour the personal
contributions of so many people here tonight who have made that dream,
of which Rosie spoke earlier, come to fruition and to be made possible.
Thank you very much indeed for having me as your guest tonight.
[ends]