PM Transcripts

JUSTIN SMITH:
 
Prime Minister, I think you could see it a hundred times and still get the same feeling. We are standing here and looking out over Anzac Cove. How are you feeling today?
 
PRIME MINISTER:
 
Look, it is incredibly special to be here. It is a tremendous honour to be here and like thousands of others here today and tomorrow I am simply paying my respects to our glorious forebears who were tested beyond almost anything we can imagine here one hundred years ago. It was an extraordinary test but they did not flinch.
 
JUSTIN SMITH:
 
Prime Minister, obviously this was the beginning of the Anzac spirit but it is something that is living now. I was talking during the week to an Afghanistan veteran who has done three tours. He is now working his way through some post-traumatic stress disorder which is nothing new but it is something that he is getting through. It is a moving thing – it is changing. It’s still here isn’t it?
 
PRIME MINISTER:
 
Oh yeah and one of the things that we understand much better now is the impact on mental health combat can have. In order to get through combat it seems people bury things and then months or years or decades later that can come back to the surface in a very difficult way for them and for those who are close to them. So, while we can never, I suppose, entirely eliminate the unseen wounds of war we are much better at dealing with them today than we were 100 years ago.
 
JUSTIN SMITH:
 
Prime Minister, I don’t want to talk about any current issues but you are now a Prime Minister who has had to send troops overseas. Does that change your perspective at all about something like Gallipoli?
 
PRIME MINISTER:
 
Well, plainly, no Australian government lightly puts our armed forces in harm’s way. Back in 1914 the then Australian government committed the first Australian imperial force because we believed, rightly, that our values, our vital national interests, were under threat and so our army deployed. It was a horrible, horrible, almost unimaginably awful conflict but there was really not much alternative, alas. Likewise, today, things are quite different, obviously, but we still have threats to our national interest, we still have challenges to our national values and sometimes these require a military response.
 
JUSTIN SMITH:
 
But does it change your perspective when you look at Gallipoli? I mean I know that you have a very good understanding of history and a good appreciation of history. Does it change your view that you have now been in that position?
 
PRIME MINISTER:
 
Well, plainly, being here, seeing this toe-hold of land that was so fought over and which cost almost 9,000 Australian lives, it does graphically bring home to you the human cost of conflict – the high price that any country pays in any war.
 
JUSTIN SMITH:
 
Prime Minister, do you think we are really getting this right? We know how to honour these men and we have known for a couple of decades now. With every year we seem to be getting better, it’s almost not the right word, but we just seem to be getting it right more and more.
 
PRIME MINISTER:
 
Well, I hope so, Justin, but I am reluctant to give anyone three cheers prematurely and we have got the commemoration tomorrow which I know will be a solemn and a moving occasion and I guess I am hoping that I can find some good words to give voice to our nation’s feeling tomorrow.
 
JUSTIN SMITH:
 
I am sure you will, Prime Minister. Thank you very much.
 
PRIME MINISTER:
 
Thanks Justin. Thank you.
 
[ends]