25 January 1999
E&OE………………………………………………………………………
Thank you very much Philip Ruddock, to your Excellency, the Governor of Queensland and Mrs Arnison, to the acting Premier of Queensland, to my Ministerial colleagues, Philip Ruddock and John Herron and any others who are present, to the Lord Mayor of Brisbane and other distinguished guests, and most particularly the Australian achievers of 1998, ladies and gentlemen.
This is a special two headed event to use the sporting parlance, it’s an opportunity of course to commemorate the 50th Anniversary of the separate establishment in 1949 of Australian citizenship. The moment at which legally we ceased all to be in the absence of separate national citizenship, British subjects, and became as well Australian citizens. But of course it would be wrong and a total misreading of the history of our country to imagine for a moment that the Australian national identity started with the formal proclamation of the legal identity of Australian citizen. Those who trace the history of our nation will, I think, agree that the Australian identity and therefore in the spirit, the true identity of an Australian citizen and a man or woman of the Australian nation was forged long before 1949.
But it is, this celebration, an opportunity to do a number of very simple things. It’s an opportunity for all of us as Australians to reflect upon the extraordinary good fortune that has come our way to be the citizens of this country. There is no country on earth as fully endowed with the good things of life than our nation. It’s also an opportunity to acknowledge a simple reality. And that is that there is no hierarchy of descent when it comes to being an Australian citizen. Whether our ancestors were here thousands of years ago as in the case of the original Australians, the indigenous people, whether our ancestors came in the 19th century, or whether we or our ancestors are amongst the millions of Australians who have flocked to this country since the end of World War II, we are equally together, one no better than the other, all Australians.
And those who’ve come recently and embraced this nation as theirs, have as much right as I or anybody else in this audience to claim this country as their own, to respect and abide by its laws and to seek the shelter and the protection which comes with being a citizen of Australia.
And I think the third thing that this occasion allows us to do, is in our own different way to conjure up what is the greatest of all the Australian achievements. I think the Australian achievement as a collective expression is a marvellous way of describing what we have done. But we all, in a sense, assess that achievement in our own personal way. And no one individual assessment is better than the next person’s. I don’t believe in a society where there has to be a defined, handed down, for all purposes definition of what is the Australian spirit or what does Australia represent. We all have our own experiences, we all have our passions and our own definition of that.
To me I think one of the many great things about the Australian achievement is that better than most nations on earth we have been able to blend the best of our past to build such a contented, tolerant and united present. We have borrowed much and we have enjoyed much from our British and other European heritage. Respect for law, the parliamentary institutions the freedom of the press, the great inheritance of English literature which of course is the basis of our common national language. But we have been wise enough as a people to reject the pretentions and the class structures which were endemic in many of the nations of Europe. We have continued a great bond with the people of North America and we share with the peoples of North America the great traditions of liberal democracy. And to complete it here we are in the Asia Pacific region and in recent years we have been enriched by the migration to our country of tens of thousands of people from the different nations of Asia. And they have given us a living person-to-person link with that part of the world.
When you add that to the rich tradition of our indigenous heritage, we have built something on this continent of ours that no other nation has been able to achieve. We have developed traditions of mateship, of tolerance, of tenacity, of courage, of the volunteer spirit that I think makes every individual Australian immensely proud.
I am passionately proud of my Australian heritage. I respect the heritage of my parents, and I respect the respect that other Australians have for the heritage of their parents coming from different parts of the world. There is no nation that has so successfully brought together people from 140 or more different origins or source countries as well as Australia has.
So, on this, the eve of Australia Day 1999, the last Australia Day that I will see that won’t have a two in front of it, can I say to all of you that in our different ways let us celebrate what it is like to be an Australian. Let us reflect upon the immense privilege of being an Australian citizen. Let us reflect upon the bounty of the Australian nation and let us acknowledge the contribution that our forefathers have made to the building of such a united happy and successful nation.
It is an immense privilege for me as Prime Minister to be part of this observance of the 50th Anniversary of the establishment of separate Australian citizenship. I think it is a great occasion. I thank the Minister for inviting me. I wish all of you well and along with all of you I rejoice in the great achievement, the great miracle of individual Australian citizenship over the last 50 years.
Thank you.
ends