E&OE...........
Mr Dimitris Avramopoulos, Mayor of the City of Athens, Vice-Mayors, ladies and gentlemen. May I say to you Mr Mayor that you have done me a very great honour today in this very touching ceremony, in awarding me the Medal of the City of Athens. It is touching for me personally, but it is also a great honour that you have paid to my country Australia.
The ties between our two countries are very strong. Importantly, they are based on shared loyalties involving some six to seven hundred thousand Australians who love their mother country Greece but love and respect and are great contributors to their new country Australia.
As the leader of a country that had the great fortune to remain continuously democratic through the whole of the 20th century, one of the few in the world, I am particularly conscious of the debt that I and my country owes to Athens, the cradle of democracy.
Along with another 100,000 or more spectators, I first met you Mr Mayor at Stadium Australia during the closing ceremony of the 2000 Sydney Olympics. When the Olympic flag, which you showed me in your office, was passed into your custody to be retained and proudly flown at the Olympic Games here in Athens in 2004.
We know that the Games of Athens in 2004 will be a huge success. Australia will help in any way it can, but we know that in their own special way the people of Greece will deliver an Olympiad that will long be remembered.
And finally Mr Mayor, I will have the opportunity on Sunday of visiting Crete, where I will have the chance of paying homage and respect to the sacrifices of Greeks and Australians together in the cause of freedom and in defence of the values that you did so much to give birth to and which in the modern era we share together.
Thank you.