PRIME MINISTER
TRANSCRIPT OF NEWS CONFERENCE, NATIONAL PARK CENTRE,
ECEABAT, GALLIPOLI, 25 APRIL 1990
JOURNALIST: Well, how do you feel, Mr Hawke?
PM: I think, like all the rest of you, still very
emotionally effected by, by this morning and just
particularly, as you've seen, I've spent a lot of time
with the old veterans and just to sit and listen to them
is a most moving experience. Most of them are still
thinking about the mates they left behind which is very
moving. JOURNALIST: And how are they Mr Hawke?
PM: I think they're in great shape. It's surprising
really to, to see the resilience of them. You know,
you're young and fit and, you know, when you've come far
and across the world that you feel a bit, you know, down
and you've got to take a while to get yourself together.
Well, here are these fellows of an average age, I
suppose, of about 94 or 95 and vibrant, their eyes
sparkling. I think it's just the remembrance of their,
their mates here and being back here that's just lifted
them. JOURNALIST: Was it what you expected this morning?
PM: I guess so.' It was hard to tell in the dark at
first, of course. I didn't realise just how very close
we were to the beach where we did the service. I thought
perhaps we were a bit further up the hill, but then when
the light came up and you saw there was the water, the
very water out of which those men had stepped and into
that hail of death, it was unbelievably moving.
JOURNALIST: What part of the ceremony did you find most
effected you?
PM: I think probably when you saw the ones who stood up.
for the national anthems and the ones who wanted to, but
who couldn't quite make it. I think that was, you know,
perhaps the most moving part in a sense.
JOURNALIST: Did you ever have to fight back tears?
PM: No, not fight back, but I wouldn't have tried. I
don't think anyone there today was really trying to fight
anything back. If it happened, it happened. No-one need
feel any sense of shame about tears there today.
JOURNALIST: Mr Hawke, the big question of course is that
the significance of this is perhaps the last visit that
the veterans may well make here.
PM: Yes.
JOURNALIST: What's going to happen to the Gallipoli
legend afterwards?
PM: I think it will, it will live on and in fact this
pilgrimage today I think will serve to ensure that that
happens because the new generation of Australians is
going to have seen the commitment of these men of
years ago, who were here 75 years ago, they are going to
see that and this is a sort of a regeneration of the
spirit of ANZAC which will go on I think.
JOURNALIST: Do you think that's true of young people
today? PM: I think so. You looked at the, at the number of
people there today. I particularly noticed as I was
coming out, because it was too dark when we were going
in, but by the end of the service I was able to move
around at the end of it amongst the,-the people there and
as I was driving away I also saw them. Just hundreds and
hundreds of young people and they weren't there just as
tourists. You could tell that in listening to them and
talking to them. I was with a sense of pilgrimage that
they were there.
JOURNALIST: Did you find yourself looking up at the
sphinx and looking up at the hill and wondering?
PM: I looked there and I didn't see the sphinx from
where I was, but-I really have a feeling that this
afternoon when we go back there, I'd just like to get out
of the car and away from the groups and just, literally,
just walk by myself through the, through the battle
points. I'd love it if it's possible, I don't know
whether it is, to go to Quinn's Post. I mean, I think in
all the reading of, about Gallipoli, that was very much
in my mind because it was a remarkable achievement. It
was attacked throughout the period of the eight months by
the Turks and it was never once relinquished and the, the
intensity of the fighting there which is unimaginable and
I'd just like to get out for a walk around and get
the feel of it directly.
JOURNALIST: Did you find that, after all the reading
you've done on Gallipoli, actually being there and seeing
the landscape made it all, brought it all home to you?
PM: Brought it back and you just try and, you know,
close your eyes and imagine the men landing in the water
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and the making their way up the, up the hill. You've got
to remember that it's quite different now in a sense from
what it was. That road that goes through the middle
where we were was not there before. It was just a fairly
sheer climb that they had there in 1915. But even
making allowances for that, you could get an impression
of what an enormous achievement that was to get from the
beach up to that ridge. You've got to remember that the
first day was the day they made their, their furthest
incursion and at the end of that first day they'd reached
about a mile and a half inland some of them, not a lot
of them and that was the furthest point that was
reached in the whole of the eight months.
JOURNALIST: Do you think every Australian should make an
effort to get to Gallipoli one time in their life?
PM: Yes, I think it would be good for all Australians to
get there. Yes, it is and I must say for myself, I'd
never read so intensely about it as I had in preparation
for coming here and I just feel I know more about my
country now as a result of having done that.
ends
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