Bomana War Cemetery, Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea
PM: It's a very moving experience to be here and to see the rows of Australian war dead.
I've come here to PNG to commemorate our past and to build for our future.
I'm very pleased I had the opportunity today to come and pay my respects and the respects of the Australian nation to those who sacrificed so much for the freedom that we enjoy today.
QUESTION: (Inaudible)
PM: Well, as we move through the war graves, we talked about the history, and it pays to remind about the history and the heroism of Australians and PNG troops who held back the Japanese here in PNG.
If they'd failed to do so, and if the Japanese had taken Port Moresby, then the history would have been a very different one.
So we are really commemorating sacrifice that made our nation the safe place that it is today, otherwise the history of the last century would have been very different.
QUESTION: Do you have any relatives here?
PM: No, I do not.
My family is from the United Kingdom, so my grandfather fought with the British forces in World War II.
QUESTION: So you've been to many war graves. Can you explain how this one is different to any of the others?
PM: This is different.
I think the setting here in PNG, the tropical setting, the lush setting, is such a stark contrast to the headstones that we see behind us.
So the brutal simplicity of it really brings the message home for everybody.
[ENDS]