PRIME MINISTER
EMBARGOED UNTIL DELIVERY CHECK AGAINST DELIVERY
GOVERNMENT RECEPTION
PARLIAMENT HOUSE, CANBERRA -24 NOVEMBER 1986
Your Holiness, Excellencies, Ladies and Gentlemen.
it gives me great pleasure to welcome you to our Parliament
House. Your Holiness, the Australian Government and people, and
most especially those of Catholic faith, have long looked
forward to your visiting our country as Pope John Paul II.
We know of course that you visited Australia in 1973 as a
Cardinal for the International Eucharistic Congress. But it
is a particular honour for us now that you have come, in
response to the invitations of the Government and the
Australian Catholic Bishops, for a longer, more intensive
visit. As the head of the Roman Catholic Church, you will receive a
particularly warm welcome from Australia's large Catholic
community. Catholics have had an enormous and enriching influence on
the culture and politics of this country.
They made their presence felt here from the beginning of
European settlement, particularly through the Irish
community. The successful struggle of Irish Australians to
have themselves and the Catholic faith recognised as equals
in our society, and their determination not to stand apart
from the rest of the community, were major factors in
shaping our history.
In more recent times, Catholics from Italy, Malta, the
Netherlands, the Spanish-speaking world, Vietnam and other
countries have enhanced the richness and diversity of our
country0
And on this occasion, Your Holiness, it would be highly
remiss of me to-fail to acknowledge our Polish community,
which while maintaining close links with its native country,
has made a distinctive and important contribution to
Australian life.
F
The Roman Catholic Church in Australia has made and
continues to play a vital role in the care of our sick and
our aged and our orphans and in the education of generations
of Australian youth.
One of the abiding issues in the development of Australian
education has been the division of responsibility between
Church and State. My Government is particularly proud of
the level of understanding which has been reached between
the Government and non-government education sectors on the
key issue of funding. The result is a new confidence and
cooperative spirit between the major providers of education
in this country.
In the Parliament, Catholics have made their mark on both
sides of politics at the highest level. It is without any
sense of political partisanship that I point with pride to
the strong and enduring historical links between the
Australian Catholic community and the Australian Labor
Party. As for our nation's intellectual life, it has been greatly
enriched by a glittering vein of Catholic artists, thinkers
and educators Max Charlesworth, Mary and Elizabeth Durack,
Margaret Manion, Lee Murray, Patrick Moran, Patrick
O'Farrell, George Zubrzycki to name but a few.
Nor is it possible adequately to describe the role of the
Catholic Church in this country without recalling some of
the enduring names of the Church, men and women who have
been great church leaders as well as great Australians.
I think in particular of Mother Mary McKillop, and
Australia's three native-born Cardinals, Cardinals Gilroy,
Knox and Freeman.
Your Holiness, I make these brief remarks about the Catholic
contribution to our society in order to help explain one of
the most important factors making for stability and social
well-being in Australia that is the way in which, perhaps
more than any comparable country, we have overcome and left
behind religious sectarianism. Whatever their faith and
background, Australians have shown a remarkable capacity to
create a harmonious, plural and multicultural society.
Your Holiness, we know that one of the principal concerns of
your papacy has been the dignity of work and the entitlement
of people to meaningful employment and to effective trade
unionism. This Government wholeheartedly endorses these
sentiments. The search for ways of expanding the
participation in work, particularly for young Australians,
is one of the great tasks of Government in this country and
one to which we are devoting much of our time and resources.
If we turn to international affairs, we see again that the
Roman Catholic Church under the leadership of Your Holiness
has made a distinctive contribution to world affairs. The
Government and people of Australia share your commitment to
the cause of peace, religious freedom, development and human
rights.
I believe that Your Holiness' visits to our country, and to
so many other countries throughout the world since you
assumed the papacy 8 years ago, have helped to stimulate
efforts towards ensuring a safer and more harmonious world.
Australia has welcomed your initiatives towards peace and
your call for mutual and effective disarmament. Your
efforts in this regard have been specially highlighted in
this the International Year of Peace. For its part, the
Government is doing all in its power to encourage progress
towards balanced and verifiable nuclear disarmament and has
given the International Year of Peace special prominence in
this country.
Let me also say, Your Holiness, how pleased we are that you
are about to participate in a candle-lighting ceremony here
which will symbolise your personal commitment to peace in
the world.
We have, as a Government, maintained close contact with the
Holy See on developments of importance to us in our region
and appreciate the constructive role the Catholic Church has
played, especially in the human rights area, in the
Philippines and elsewhere.
And we have noted the important part the Catholic Bishops,
along with the Council of Churches, continue to play in
attempting to persuade the South African Government to
dismantle its abhorrent system of apartheid and in seeking
dialogue amiong the different racial groups.
Your personal efforts towards international understanding
and co-operation, and your advocacy of the dignity of the
human person and of freedom of worship, have won the
admiration of Australians and have inspired people the world
over not to abandon their faith in those ideals.
Your Holiness, in the next 6 days you will visit each of the
States and the Northern Territory. We are indeed pleased
that you will see so much of our country and that you will
have the opportunity to make contact with large numbers of
Australians, in many different walks of life.
And since you have also been a forceful advocate for the
rights of indigenous peoples in the countries you have
visited, we are pleased that you are taking the opportunity
to visit some of Australia's Aboriginal people. we know
that your meeting with them will be a memorable and
uplifting event as indeed it will be throughout the entire
Australian community, and for all Australians.
I invite the Leader of the Opposition, Mir John Howard, to
support my remarks.