26 January 1997 TRANSCRIPT OF THE PRIME MINISTER
THE HON. JOHN HOWARD MP
SPEECH TO MARION CITY COUNCIL AUSTRALIA DAY
CITIZENSHIP CEREMONY, HALLETT COVE, SOUTH
AUSTRALIA
( tape begins)
past few days, rather as being the miracle of being an Australian. On an occasion such
as this there's no shortage of words, there's no shortage of cliches, there's no shortage of
rhetoric and often there's no shortage of, on occasions rather, meaningless comments
about national identity. I just want to say to you that the most important things that we
should think about on an occasion such as today are those things that unite us and bind us
together as Australians. It's always been a strong belief of mine that the core of continued
nation-building is to focus on the things that we have in common rather than the things
that might divide us or might push us apart.
Everybody has their own view of what constitutes the Australian identity. That is the
nature of a democracy. It is not the role of the Prime Minister, it is not the role of any
self-appointed group of national identity dietitians to tell us what our national identity is.
A national identity is something that belongs to the entire community. It is something that
comes out of the spirit of a people. It is something that is fashioned over a period of time
or fashioned or influenced by some great, traumatic or earth-shattering events in the
history of a nation and that is the case with Australia as it has been with many other
countries. I was reminded by the message read from Andrew Southcott that one of the
great achievements of Australia is that we have been one of only eight countries that have
been continuously democratic through the whole of the 20th century, and whilst it is
acknowledged that many countries lost their democracy through invasion and conquest
and through no fault of their own, it is a particularly meritorious achievement and
something that those who would tend to denigrate the Australian achievement, those who
would see the Australian identity as being linked in part with a perpetual apology rather
than a proud assertion of what this country has achieved, I think that we have been, along
with only seven other nations the only group of nations to be continuously democratic
through the entire 20th century, it is a tribute to the skill of those that have gone before us,
it is a tribute to the special character of this country and it is a tribute to the Australian
achievement. Like any nation we have stains in our past, we have made mistakes, we have done
injustices to people. Injustices and underprivilege remain in modern Australia. To pretend
that everybody has a full measure of the Australian achievement is to ignore reality. To
pretend that there are not things that remain to be done to generate a more secure, a more
just and a more equitable Australian community is also to ignore reality. But when you
assess a nation, you assess a balance sheet of its past achievements and the current state of
its being and when you apply that to Australia, that balance sheet has been an
extraordinarily positive one. And one of the many things that has distinguished the
Australian achievement has been our remarkable openness and tolerance. No nation in the
world has more successfully absorbed people from the four corners of the Earth in a more
tolerant fashion than has the Australian nation and when it comes to tolerance and when it
comes to willingness to accept people, this nation should bend its knee to no group of
people or to no nation in asserting the tolerance and the liberties and the open heartedness
and the fair mindedness of the Australian community. Our success over recent decades in
particular in successfully absorbing people from the rest of the world in an atmosphere of
great harmony and great openness and great tolerance is one of the proudest things we
should feel on Australia Day and I for one, and I think I echo the views of millions of
Australians in saying it, that that is something of which we can be assertively proud and
not in any way apologetic or in any way lacking in a very strong affirmation of what
Australia has achieved.
Can I say to those people who are becoming Australian citizens for the first time today,
welcome, thank you for making our country yours. We welcome the contribution that you
make. By becoming Australian citizens I naturally invite you to continue as I guess is the
case with all of you, your very active participation in Australian and community life and as
Australian citizens in the fullest sense of the word to exercise and enjoy the privileges of
living in this country.
I spoke in Sydney at an Australia Day gathering of some of the characteristics that have
always distinguished the Australian society and the Australian community and one of those
characteristics of course has been our informality, our openness and our lack of
pretension. I think there's something quite evocative and touching about having a
citizenship ceremony on the edge of the water. The ocean has always played a very major
part in shaping the psyche of Australia. To millions of Australians an identification with
the sea, an identification with the water has been part and parcel of their upbringing, and a
part and parcel of how they think of themselves as Australians. I should say, Mr Mayor,
Your Worship, that having this Australian Day ceremony on the edge of the ocean, I
couldn't think of a more appropriate spot. It's a reminder that we have come, we're a
nation that to a large extent is made up of people who have come across the ocean, either
by ship or more recently by planes to make this their home. And of course it is also a
reminder that we are as a nation an amalgamation of those who have lived here for tens
and thousands of years, the original Australians, and those who have come more recently
over the last two hundred years and it is also, as the General Manager pointed out, an
opportunity to reflect upon the importance of a better understanding between all
Australians and a determination to achieve through the remedying of disadvantage a full
and complete reconciliation between all members of the Australian community.
Ladies and gentlemen, this above all is an occasion for us to forget our differences,
whether they be of a political, commercial or other kind. It is not a day that belongs to the
Liberal Party, the Labor Party or to any other Party. It is not a day that belongs to any
particular view about how Australian society should be run within the democratic
tradition. It is a day to celebrate things in common. It is a day to celebrate the unity of
the Australian people. It is a day to celebrate the miracle of being an Australian and it is
most importantly the day to be immensely proud of the role model of tolerance and
openness that Australia represents to the world, not only now in the late 1990s but over
the 200 years that have gone by since European settlement.
Thank you very much.