SPEECH BY THE PRIME INISTER THE HON P J KEATING. N2
NATIONAL COMMEMORA17ON SERVICE V P DAY, BRISBANE. 15 AUGUST 1995
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I have been privileged in the past three years to visit some of the cemeteries in Asia and
the Pacific and in Europe where Australian servicemen and women lie buried. It has
been my duty to utter some words of tribute on behalf of the Australian people and
participate in services to commemorate their deeds and sacrifice.
It has been one of the great privileges of my life. But it is a humbling experience. No
Australian can fail to be affected by these places.
This year, as part of the Australia Remembers program, many veterans of our World War
HI campaigns have made pilgrimages to the battlefields and these cemeteries. I think it is
beyond the capacities of my generation to appreciate just how deep their feelings must
have run.
It is not, however, beyond us to understand and it is our duty to try. It is our duty to
convey to our children what the deaths of those Australians mean to all of us and will
always mean.
Most Australians will never stand among the graves in Bomana and Lae, or Singapore or
Kanchanabuni or Yokohama or in any of the cemeteries in Europe, Sritain or the Middle
East. But all of us should know that Australians are buried there.
We should know why, and the meaning it contains for us.
We cannot know what their last days were like; what suffering they went through, what
pain and longing and despair they endured so far from home. We can only imagine.
And fifty years later we can feel the loss of their lives as our loss.
To stand among those graves is to recognise the profound truth of the ties that bind us as
Australians. These are Australians like ourselves. But these Australians gave their
young lives: gave them so we might live in peace and freedom, gave them so we might
enjoy the blessings of life and enjoy them in the country they loved-
Contemplate those graves, or the 40,000 names on the World War II Honour Roll at the
Australian War MemoriaL and the story of this country, and the story of every one who
calls it home, takes on an irresistible meaning.
It instils in our national life a sense of duty.
The story tells us that there was a generation of men and women who so loved this
country, and the freedoms and way of life we now enjoy, they were prepared to lay down
their lives. There were Australians who so loved what is just, they defended it to the
death. We cannot think about this without understanding the debt we owe them, and the duty we
have to honour their memory.
To truly honour them is much more than a ritual task. It is to take the knowledge of their
sacrifice into our daily lives and the life of Australia-It it is to love this country and give
to it as they did which is to say with that same faith from which their inspiration, effort
and endurance flowed.
It is to believe in freedom as they did, defend freedom as they did. To work together as
they did.
It is to make this country as strong and secure as they made it.
Time has changed our perspective on the world and on ourselves. We have had to adjust
our thinking to accommodate necessities. In many ways I think we are better for it. It
may be that we are less naive and more worldly than the Australians of fifty years ago. I
believe we are more tolerant and more open.
But if we are to succeed as we should we will always need their strength, their collective
spirit, their sense of duty, their faith. We will need their inspiration
I hope that this Australia Remembers year has reminded us all of these things.
Never did a generation of Australians have more reason to celebrate than those of
years ago. In pure and simple terms they were celebrating a victory. They had fought for
what they believed in and won. They had truted in their values and in each other and
they had been vindicated. Now they had every reason to expect the rewards of peace and.
prosperity. What we have done this year is to join them in this celebration, in this same confident
belief in the futue.
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Today we should recognise that we have the same unbreakable link to those people who
danced in the streets 50 years ago as we do with those who lie in those gaves in New
Guinea and Borneo and Thailand and Japan.
We are part of the one story.
I think this Australia Remembers year will have been a triumph if it has reminded us of
that I hope our commemorations this year have remided the Australians of today that
they have as much reason to celebrate as those of 50 years ago.
And the reason is the same-We are a free and independent people, we live in peace and
we have a great future.
And we have these things in common and we have a duty to Australia.