Your Excellency, Prime Minister, Premier, parliamentary and ministerial colleagues, particularly our ministerial colleagues from France and from Japan, Opposition Leader Shorten, distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen.
Each nation is formed by its stories and each generation has to tell the stories again and make sense of them anew and to recommit ourselves to our best values.
It's great that we are now helped to do that through this new interpretive centre here at Albany. It is fitting that this centre should be placed at Albany given that Albany was the jumping off point for the original ANZACS.
I want to congratulate the city of Albany and everyone connected with this centre for what has been produced.
We've just had the opportunity to have a, regrettably brief, tour of the centre. I wonder at the heroism and I tremble at the suffering of our forebears but I marvel at what they've done for our country.
In just four months 20,000 men from every corner of this continent plus another 8,500 from New Zealand were recruited and conveyed to Albany and from here they were safely transported to the other side of the world.
Never before had Australia mustered so many troops, never before had we served so closely with New Zealanders and never before – or since – has such a large convoy of soldiers left Australia.
The people of Albany have never forgotten their special role as the last and final hosts for thousands of their fellow Australians who gave their lives for our country.
We should remember the massive logistical challenge met and conquered with the successful departure of the ANZAC convoy.
We should remember those who served on the Royal Navy’s HMS Minotaur and the Japanese cruiser Ibuki, and on the HMS Melbourne and Sydney who helped to protect the original ANZACS as they made their way to Egypt and then to Gallipoli.
We should remember the famous victory of HMAS Sydney over the German raider Emden whose destruction ensured the safety of the convoy as it sailed to Egypt.
Of course we should remember, always, the 417,000 men who enlisted, the 332,000 who served overseas, 152,000 who were wounded and the 61,000 who never came back.
As the historian Les Carlyon has said, if we remember them – if we remember what they did – they are still alive in our hearts. We should acknowledge, “the good and the bad, the greatness and the smallness” of the entire ANZAC story – the terrible victory on the Western Front, as much as the magnificent defeat at Gallipoli.
In no way should the centenary of ANZAC glorify war but it should commemorate what is best in our human character and acknowledge that the worst of times can bring out the best in us.
It is an honour for me to be in such company today – the living and the glorious dead – as we commemorate this marvellous centre.
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