E&OE..........................................................................................................................
Thank you very much Jim Jackson, the President of the Gladesville
RSL Club. To John Watkins, the State Member for Gladesville, to
Councillor Peter Graham, the Mayor of Ryde, and to all the members
of the Gladesville RSL Club.
When I first became the Member for Bennelong back in 1974 one of
the very first community organisations in my electorate that I made
contact with was the Gladesville RSL Club. And I've retained
a very affectionate and close association with that club over the
last 23 to 24 years. It is an outstanding example of the community
spirit in this part of Sydney and this part of Australia.
It is not only a club that honours the sacrifice and the contribution
of the men and women of Australia in the wars in which this country
has been involved this century and, most particularly, by dint of
the passage of years of World War II and the battles in Korea and
Vietnam, but it is also an organisation that has put an enormous
amount into the local community. It is not just a recreation club.
It is a club that provides comradeship and friendship and a family
network, in the broader sense of the word, for the people of Gladesville
and the surrounding areas. And over that 25-year period it has poured
vast resources into helping young people in the area, into helping
other organisations into providing welfare support for widows and
children of returned servicemen and generally providing a local
community network.
I have found, in my experience, that whenever the Gladesville RSL
Club has been asked to help a worthwhile local activity, it has
been only too willing and only too able and only too effective in
the contribution that it has made. And I've often spoken, in
recent times, of how the only way that we in Australia can achieve
what we want to do and the only way in which we can build the kind
of society we want for the 21st Century is to have a shared endeavour
between the Government, the community and the individual. Governments
can't do everything. Community organisations can't do
everything and individuals can't do everything. We need to
pool our resources, to share our endeavour and to combine our activities
to build the kind of Australian society that I know that we all
want for the 21st Century. And I can't think of an organisation,
in a general sense, that has done more to blend the great traditions
of the Australian past with an eye to the future and the kind of
society we want for the 21st Century than RSL clubs, of which the
Gladesville RSL Club is an outstanding example.
I cannot, of course, given that I'm declaring open some extension
of an RSL club and that I'm in the presence of many men and
women who put their lives on the line to defend Australia, I can't
let that occasion go by without expressing the hope that, even at
this eleventh hour, a peaceful settlement in the Gulf dispute will
be possible.
You are aware that the day before yesterday, on behalf of all Australians
and with the Leader of the Opposition accompanying me, I farewelled
the Australian service personnel who are now on the verge of arriving
in the Gulf. And I wished them well and Godspeed on behalf of all
Australians. But in saying so, I expressed the fervent hope, which
I repeat this morning, that a peaceful settlement will be possible
in the Middle East.
Nobody knows and nobody feels more keenly than those people who
sore active service in World War II, in particular, of whom there
are so many here this morning. Those men know better than anybody
else, better than I do, better than those younger than I and this
audience do, the sheer horror and the sheer wastefulness of war.
There is not a man or women amongst us this morning who sees war
as anything other than dirty, distasteful and always to be avoided
unless the cost of avoiding it is greater than the cost of being
involved in it. And that remains the approach of my Government.
We are prepared to join in a military strike if that is necessary.
But before we take that fateful decision, we want every single avenue
of diplomacy explored. We want every single opportunity taken to
enable Saddam Hussein to allow the inspection of those sites where,
on good grounds, it is believed that weapons of mass destruction
are stored. This is no idle, indifferent, irrelevant issue for Australia.
It is something that does threaten the stability of the Middle East
unless it is properly resolved. And if he is allowed to get away
with what he is attempting then others will be provoked into doing
likewise. And the lessons of history are, that if you allow that
to happen you end up paying a far greater price than the price you
would have paid if you had taken action in the first place.
And that is the basis of the decision that has been taken by my
Government. I believe it is a decision which has very strong support
in the Australian community. And I acknowledge the support that
has been given to it by Mr Beazley on behalf of the Australian Labor
Party. Because when Australian troops go abroad, they should go
abroad not against the background of political disputation, but
against the background of having the support and understanding of
all of the Australian people.
I hope it won't be necessary for them to go into active service.
I know that if it does become necessary, they will perform in the
finest traditions of the Australian Defence Forces, just as the
men and women here this morning, many of whom are members of the
Gladesville RSL Club, performed when their time came in the finest
traditions of the Australian Defence Forces.
Moving from that rather more serious and sombre note, can I say
to you Jim, once again, it's a delight to be your guest. Jim
is an ornament, as President of the RSL Club here, to the local
community in Gladesville. I understand you've invested about
$3.5 million in these extensions. It will provide marvellous new
facilities to your members and guests. It will continue to provide
a great focus of community activity. And I look forward to visiting
it again in the near future.
I think I'll have to tell you this morning that it's
probable that I won't be in my electorate on Anzac Day. At
this stage it is my intention to pay a very quick visit to Hellfire
Pass - the opening of the great memorial in Hellfire Pass - on the
site of the Burma-Thailand Railway on Anzac Day this year and on
behalf of the Australian Government and the Australian people, honour
those men of Australia who died in those terrible circumstances
in World War II as prisoners of war of the Japanese. And I hope
that that ceremony will bring home to younger generations in Australia
again the huge debt that they owe, that we all owe, to the men who
laid down their lives in those tragic circumstances. And also it
will be a fitting momument to the links that were forged after World
War II between Australia and the nations of Asia. And it will be
a reminder of the exultation of men like Weary Dunlop who said that
always remembering the past tragedies, we should look to the future
and we should build links between Australia and the nations of Asia.
So if I'm not here on Anzac Day, Jim, you will understand that
I'm not swinging the lead, that I will, in fact, be doing precisely
that.
But may I say again, thank you ladies and gentlemen of the Gladesville
RSL Club for having me here this mornming. To you, Jim, in particular,
thank you for your courtesy and hospitality. I declare the extentions
open and I wish good fortune, good happiness and plenty of chit
chat and social exchanges between your members years into the future.
Thank you very much.
[Ends]