Your Excellency, Mrs Jeffery, distinguished guests, members of the great Australian family, including the respected family of Aboriginal Australia, within our nation.
Australia Day. There is I think, a great, unrestrained, almost unbridled optimism, almost joy - in fact, unbridled joy - about the way in which we celebrate this day, Australia day. I think that says something about the people we are. It says something about - we are a nation of youth, a nation of energy and a nation of ideas and of optimism.
A nation which believes its best days lie ahead of us. And its not just here in the nation's Capital - but its wonderful to see so many thousands turn out here in this great community of Canberra today.
Its from Cape York to Cape Lewin, its from the vast expanses of the inland through to the foreshores of Sydney Harbour. Our cities, our towns, the bush. It's the backyard barbeques and its learned academic symposia. All celebrating this one thing. This nation, this country this idea that we call Australia.
Within that we have so much to celebrate and be proud of in terms of this nations achievements. For this day, Australia Day is about celebrating our heritage, its about pausing for a moment to reflect on how we best chart our future.
When we reflect on this heritage we are proud, intensely proud of this nation's Aboriginal heritage. We stand in awe at the dreaming. We stand in awe at the fact that among us, is the world's oldest continuing culture. We stand in awe as we hear the songs and the sounds and the stories and the music which have come down to us from antiquity. We stand in awe at the rock art in the Kimberley's and beyond. Rock art older, more ancient that anything we find in the ancient caves of France and of Spain. There is much to celebrate. In terms of Aboriginal Australia, giving us so much of our continuing identity as Australians. And we celebrate the fact that this great people have endured, have endured the shock of European settlement and we are honoured to share this great south land with Indigenous Australia.
We celebrate also the great pioneers and settlers who have opened up this great vast land, we celebrate those who have crafted this great Australian democracy, those who have brought to us the great heritage of the independence of the law.
We celebrate those who have gone out and defended this democracy. Our men and our women in uniform, in countless conflicts through the decades of this nation's federated history and still today in fields as far flung as Iraq and Afghanistan and Timor and the Solomons and the Sudan.
We celebrate the achievements of our farmers who have been doing it tough, our business leaders, those who fight for the interests of working families. Those who are out there are as creators and artists and scientists and innovators, our great sporting men and women. We have so much to celebrate.
In celebrating this, we turn our gaze to the future. A young country with so many pages yet to be written in our national story.
The challenges are great, you hear us speak of them so often. Challenges of climate change, challenges of global economic uncertainty, challenges of an ageing population. Challenges far and wide and deep.
But we are fortified in meeting these challenges of the future by this: that we are a people energised by the values which have been written large across the fabric of our history. Which form the continuing thread across that fabric. Values which speak to our independence, our robust sense of freedom. Values which speak of our reward of hard work, achievement and success. But values equally which go to our ability to show care and compassion for those who need a helping hand.
And the great idea and the great concept, the great reality that is Australia is that we as a people and as a nation bring these values together and say in one sentence, we can work hard for ourselves and our families and not see that as a contradiction, in looking after our fellow human beings - working hard for our community and for our country.
We, in this great south land bring these great stories together in one people.
Of course, when you go to the challenges of the future and see how rich and deep and sometimes, daunting they appear, we must have about us this idea to build a modern Australia, drawing on these great values which have informed our past and ensuring that this nation is equipped to deal with all the challenges which lie ahead of us.
As Prime Minister of this country I am confident that we can do that. But we can do that by this and this alone, reaching out and calling forth the talents of the nation.
As I stand here and look at this crowd of assembled achievers and those of you in worker day lives across this community in Canberra and across the nation, everyone has something to offer this nation of ours Australia.
And we can only build a modern Australia capable of facing the challenges of the future if we as the nation call forth the ideas, the intelligence and the energies and the enthusiasm of the nation. I said last night that I do not believe that Government has a monopoly on wisdom, and those in the crowd quickly called back - in fact government has no monopoly on any wisdom. And there may be some truth in that.
But it goes to a deep Australian truth is so much wisdom lies beyond the doors of Government and my invitation on this our national day is to come forth from the nation with the ideas and the talents and the energies which you wish to contribute to the nation's building.
Which brings me to our new citizens today. Today across Australia some 14 000 people are becoming new members of our national family. On behalf of the Government of the nation, I have one word to say. Welcome.
You are welcome to join this great Australian family. Each and every one of you. Because in charting our future history we need to draw on your talents, your enthusiasm, your energy and your ability. Each and every one of you.
Those 14 000 people who become members of the Australian family are joined by one in Emerald in flood stricken Queensland, where there is an Australia Day ceremony today. Put your hands together for the people of Emerald.
We welcomed and honoured the excellence of the Australian of the Year and the Australians of the Year last night and those who reached the finals in the great national competition. But their achievement and their success is made real for us because they have about them, a culture of service. They wish to serve the community they wish to serve the nation.
And as I look to those who are becoming members of the Australian community today, we welcome you, but there is a condition.
We want you to serve as well. Bring forth your talents, your energy, your enthusiasm to the great task of building our nation into the future. And that's all we ask.
As we look ahead to the future, let us have about us this idea, build this modern Australia drawing on the values which have fortified our past and which will fortify our future. And do so in a way which carves out a nation in the future which remains more than ever the envy of the world, and always with this idea. To remain as Australia, an overwhelming force for good in the world.
Let's together, advance Australia and let's together advance Australia fair.
I thank you.