E&OE .............................................................................................
Thank you very much John Moore. To the Leader of the Opposition, Kim
Beazley; the Minister for Foreign Affairs, Alexander Downer; my other
parliamentary and cabinet colleagues; to Admiral Chris Barrie, the Chief
of the Defence Force; Major General Peter Cosgrove, the INTERFET Commander
and the personnel of the Australian Defence Force and the Australian Federal
Police, ladies and gentlemen.
Today is an opportunity in a comprehensive bipartisan way for the people
of Australia through their elected representatives to express their immense
gratitude to the Defence Force personnel, to the Australian Federal Police
and to all the other groups and all the other organisations that played
a role in achieving an outcome in East Timor which has been immensely
to the credit and the reputation of the people of Australia. When I moved
a resolution in the Parliament in September supporting the commitment
and wishing our men and women well and a safe return home to their families.
I said that they did not go in the name of the Government, rather they
went in the name of Australia. And when men and women are asked to risk
their lives abroad in pursuit of a cause, they are entitled to know that
they go in the name of their country who gives them undivided support
in pursuit of their obligations and their responsibilities. And I'm
very proud to be able to say as Prime Minster that that proved to be the
case in relation to our deployment in East Timor.
I am delighted with today's gathering which brings together not
only representatives of INTERFET and the Australian Federal Police, but
also representatives of the Service Spouse Organisations, the families
of the men and women who went to East Timor, the various non-government
organisations that played such a critical role in the days and weeks and
months before the United Nations mandate which provided the legal authorisation
for the INTERFET deployment. Because the weeks and months leading up to
the deployment were in their own way as challenging and as tense as the
weeks and months that followed the deployment.
It is an experience that those of us involved in different levels will
never forget. I will never forget the experience involved as Prime Minister
and I shan't forget the sagacious advice and support of my senior
Cabinet colleagues in which I particularly number Alexander Downer and
John Moore. And the advice and counsel of the Department of Foreign Affairs
and my own Department and my own personal National Security Adviser, Michael
Thawley who's the new Australian Ambassador in the United States.
As we look back now on the an event that was deemed to be highly successful
and an outcome for which we are immensely grateful, it is important to
remind ourselves that the risks that were involved. And for me on behalf
of a grateful nation to pay tribute to those men and women who assumed
the greatest risk of all, and that is the risk to their lives. And if
we keep in mind the tense moments and weeks and months that would have
been the lot of their families.
We thank God that casualties were kept to such an absolute minimum. You
never have any way of knowing that at the beginning. And I shall never
forget the experience of visiting along with the Leader of the Opposition
and the Leader of the Australian Democrats, many of the troops before
they departed and the moments my wife and I spent with many of the personnel
in Townsville and the Lavarack Barracks after having met so many of them.
And seeing the groups of soldiers with their NCOs in the dusk of that
very warm North Queensland evening. And trying in some way to share the
apprehension and contemplation that they must have been feeling. It bought
home to me the immense responsibility and risk that they were assuming
on behalf of our nation and in the cause to which we as a group of people
were so very strongly committed.
May I say to you Major General Cosgrove that you have won the respect,
affection and the admiration of the entire Australian nation. Your qualities
of firm direct leadership, your capacity to articulate in a no-nonsense
fashion, the extent and the amplitude of your mandate and the inspiration
that I know that you have provided to the men and women who served under
you. It is something that makes all of us as Australians feel immensely
proud.
I am delighted that you have a representative group of the men and women
who served under you. I am also delighted that the Australian Federal
Police contingent is so well represented here today.
On the table with us is Alan Mills, now retired from the Federal Police,
but who served there before the INTERFET deployment. Served there immediately
around the time when the ballot took place and I shan't likely forget
the telephone conversation I had with him before the 10th of
September, well before the deployment. When quite literally the Australian
consulate staff in Dili was spending a great deal of time on the floor
to avoid the bullets that were flying around at the particular time and
in his very direct and laid back and very reassuring way when I asked
him how it was and he said it was a bit hairy and I thought that was a
beautiful understatement. But we should never for a moment forget the
risk that was assumed by the members of the Australian Federal Police
and I wanted recorded that the nation is immensely proud and grateful
of the contribution that the men and women of the Australian Federal Police
have afforded and I am very pleased to note the presence of so many of
them here today.
As you know ladies and gentlemen this deployment was the largest by Australia
since the Vietnam war. It was the first occasion on which Australian commanded
an international force and quite rightly significant praise and credit
from around the world has come the way of the men and women of the Australian
Defence Force. But I do not forget the fact, nor should anyone forget
the fact that they operated under the mandate of the security council
of the United Nations. They were never going to go in without the authority
and sanctions and legal commissions of the United Nations and the level
of co-operation that existed between my government and the secretary general
of the United Nations made the deployment possible. The speed with which
the mandate was achieved and the breadth and simplicity of that mandate
that made Internet's task that much easier to achieve was all the
result of the authority given by the United Nations. Nor do I forget for
a moment that we went there as partners with many other nations. And I
am pleased to acknowledge the presence of the High Commissioners and Ambassadors
of so many of the countries that sent troops and personnel to East Timor
to serve with the Australian Defence personnel.
It was a partnership, it was a regional operation, it was also an operation
that included contributions from countries with which Australia has participated
in military conflicts for the whole of this century.
And finally might I say this that we gather here today not in any sense
of triumphalism. We gather here today to express our simple gratitude
to men and women who served their country. They served their country well,
they put their lives on the line for a just cause. They stood up for what
was right and proper and in the process, they made us all feel immensely
proud. We thank god that they have come back to us. We wish all of them
well, we remember their families and we are glad that they can share some
of this occasion. Ladies and gentlemen, simply on behalf of the entire
nation, may I say thank you to general Cosgrove and his men and women
and to the men and women of the Australian Federal Police and I am delighted
to invite the leader of the opposition, Mr Kim Beazley to second my remarks.