Subjects: ANZAC Day, Meeting with President Habibe
E&OE................................................................................................
Good morning John, good to be with you.
FAINE:
And John Howard has been laying the official wreath on behalf of the
Commonwealth government. Very moving, going into the shrine on ANZAC
Day.
PRIME MINISTER:
Yes, this is the first ANZAC day dawn service I've attended in
Melbourne. I've tried in each of the years since I've been
Prime Minister to be in a different location, and this year I wanted
to come to Melbourne. It's a beautiful shrine. Of all of the
shrines in the State capitals around Australia it's hard to beat
it. It's very impressive. It is very dignified in the approach,
and the layout of the gardens around it is very conducive to, I guess,
a focus on what it's about.
FAINE:
And in public life Prime Minister, you must have been attending ANZAC
Day ceremonies in one capacity or another for a very long time. I'm
sure you, as many others have remarked on the change, in the significance
of it. In the psyche of.....
PRIME MINISTER:
Oh the way it's come back. Well it had never gone but there was
a period when, I first entered Parliament in 1974. 1975 was the first
ANZAC Day I attended as a Member of Parliament. I'd been on many
other occasions as a citizen because my dad had been in World War
I and I used to go and watch ANZAC marches in Sydney when I was a
kid very regularly. But there was a time in the 70s where people were
starting to say: oh it will eventually die out. But there has been
a reclaiming of it by the younger generations of Australia.
FAINE:
Why do you think that is?
PRIME MINISTER:
There's a combination of reasons. There's a growing interest
in the history of our country as we get towards celebrating a hundred
years of federation. People are rediscovering what a remarkable country
it's been and what a remarkable contribution that it made. I
mean when you remember that in World War I for example, almost 400,000
Australians volunteered out of a total male population of little more
than 2.5 million, all ages. It was an astonishing response. When you
think that in all of that war it was an entirely volunteer army, and
except for fairly limited circumstances it was largely a volunteer
army in World War II as well. So people are rediscovering our history
and they're rediscovering that great sense of pride that people
have in all parts of our history, and not least the contribution that
people have made to defending this country and making it free.
FAINE:
It was very fashionable to bag ANZAC Day, in the 70s in particular.
PRIME MINISTER:
I can remember....yeah, and the 60s and 70s. Well and also there
was, I say a piece by Alan Seymour the other day, who wrote that play
The One Day of the Year', which at the time created a lot
of controversy. It might now be seen in a slightly different light.
But it was. I mean a lot of people didn't share that bagging
but there were some who did. But all of that has now gone and there
is a rediscovered reverence for that to this day, and for the deeds
of Australian service men and women generally.
FAINE:
And it's a day that brings Australians together like no other.
PRIME MINISTER:
It certainly does.
FAINE:
I mean just walking around since the dawn service this morning, and
talking to people. I would have had conversations now with Australians
of every possible age and generation, and every possible ethnic background.
People who have no personal family connections to Australian military
history but still feel compelled for what ever reason to come along
today.
PRIME MINISTER:
Yes, I've had the same experience. I went and talked to all the
people who are having breakfast outside the barracks, and I would
have spent three-quarters-of-an-hour talking to them and I had exactly
the same experience. There were a lot people there obviously who'd
been in the war, children of people who'd been particularly in
World War II. But there were also a large number of people, as you
say, different ethnic backgrounds. Everybody sort of drawn as to a
magnet around this particular day. It was the one day, to use Seymour's
expression, it is the one day of the year that is very distinctively
unarguably Australian. Now that's not....I'm not saying
it's the only day of national importance to us but it has an
emotional pull and an impact on the Australian community and the Australian
psyche that none other has. And that's its special resonance,
and in a sense it's more important that we acknowledge that instead
of engaging in an endless search always as to why. I mean sometimes
with these things the acknowledgement of the significance of something
is as important as to why. But I mean there is obviously, for different
people there are different reasons. The people who were in the war
and who had loved ones in the war of course, it has a very special
resonance.
FAINE:
It strikes me as you speak, that it's the sort of felling you
try to encapsulate in the preamble to a constitution for instance.
PRIME MINISTER:
Well I won't talk about that today because there's a bit
of political debate about that and I have a golden rule on ANZAC Day
I never talk about anything that has any kind of party political....
FAINE:
Not wanting to get into that but it is that feeling.
PRIME MINISTER:
Well ANZAC Day does have a very real feeling, very special feeling.
It's something that people believe belongs to Australia alone,
and it has an "Australianess" about it that none other has.
FAINE:
We'll be talking later this morning to Mr Toma Bunjanin (sic)
who's the secretary of the first sub-branch of Serbian ex-servicemen
in Victoria. Made a point of some controversy, the Serbian ex-servicemen
will be marching here in Melbourne...
PRIME MINISTER:
Well I'm very pleased about that.
FAINE:
They're not marching in Sydney....
PRIME MINISTER:
No, well I mean....they are Australians of Serbian origin and they
were wonderful allies of the allies during World War II. I've
seen them for years in the marches in Sydney and I'm very pleased
indeed that they are marching here because they are first and foremost
citizens of Australia and the people who fought alongside the allies
during the war are an honoured part of that experience, and they are
an honoured part of the Australian community. That's quite separate
and apart from judgements people make about what is now occurring.
FAINE:
What's happening in Serbia now is a political dispute of today.
What we're celebrating is something that happened...
PRIME MINISTER:
Well what we're remembering is something that happened more than
50 years ago and the Australians of Serbian descent were magnificent
allies of ours and they fought very bravely, and they tied down, on
some estimates, helped to tie down 15 to 20 German divisions in World
War II and they were wonderful allies. Now one of the great things
about ANZAC Day is that you can remember that and you can see that
for the great deed that it then presented. The fact that we can also
very very freely acknowledge without bitterness the fact that we fought
against other countries who have now contributed magnificently to
the modern day Australian population. I mean one of the things about...you
can remember without that remembrance creating any present day difficulties
and I think that's a magnificent thing too.
FAINE:
I can't agree with you enough and you said, they're Australian
first.
PRIME MINISTER:
Exactly. I see people always as Australians first, an obviously we
each of us have our distinctive heritage which we want to preserve,
and that's fine. But we're all Australians first.
FAINE:
And what we can achieve in Australia as Australians is to put aside
some of those ancient disputes and rivalries that have in fact have
been the cause for many of those people to come here in the first
place.
PRIME MINISTER:
Well indeed, and that applies, I mean whether it's a dispute
in the Balkans, or years and years ago a dispute in Ireland, or a
dispute somewhere else. Once you come to this country something else
takes over and that's what we particularly have to offer. And
we are reminded on a day like this that that really is what those
people fought for.
FAINE:
There was a piece Gerard Henderson wrote which was in The Age
and The Sydney Morning Herald, I think maybe on Tuesday
or Wednesday, saying basically if you go far enough back in the lineage
of most Australians they are boat people of one kind or another, whether
they were boat people from Asia, or from Eastern Europe, or Central
Europe, or even from Ireland, the proportion of the Australian population
that can trace some element of that in their family history is phenomenal.
PRIME MINISTER:
Well yeah. Apart from....
FAINE:
[inaudible]
PRIME MINISTER:
Yeah perhaps. But the point, if you're talking about migrant
people, yes, apart from of course the indigenous people, but the rest
of us at some stage had ancestors who came to this country from another
country, yes. Although I don't know that, I mean boat people
is perhaps stretching it a bit. But I understand his point. I won't
argue with it.
FAINE:
That's good. The other thing I've seen in one of the papers
today, there's an extract of your speech for today and you do
talk about mateship'. You do talk about mateship'
in your ANZAC Day speech.
PRIME MINISTER:
Yes. Well one normally associates that with ANZAC Day, indeed with
a lot of other characteristics. I had a man come up to me a moment
ago and he spoke about the great volunteer spirit of Australia, and
I think that's very very much part of it too.
FAINE:
Indeed. Now 20 minutes to 9. John Howard, Prime Minister, you're
off I think to Indonesia tomorrow.
PRIME MINISTER:
I'm going to Indonesia tomorrow, yes. I'm leaving Australia
at 1.00pm tomorrow, and I'll be having my meeting with President
Habibie on Tuesday and I expect to return to Australia on Tuesday
evening. And I have a commitment here in Melbourne on Wednesday night
so I've got a bit on in the 48 hours.
FAINE:
You certainly have. But high expectations for that visit. You said
you don't want to talk politics and I don't want to.....
PRIME MINISTER:
I don't want to talk any party politics. We are all Australians
together today. Our differences of political party and background
should be put aside. I don't want to talk about that, but I'm
happy to talk about, you know, in a broad sense, about the importance
of the visit, and there is an ANZAC Day....
FAINE:
I mean we've had many returned servicemen calling in on our talkback
during the week saying that when I served in Timor we made a promise
to those people that we wouldn't forget them because of the help
they gave us in World War II.
PRIME MINISTER:
Many of the Timorese people were very helpful, yes they were. And
a number of the World War II diggers who were taken prisoner of war
by the Japanese remember with affection the help of the people of
Timor. And that's one of the things that weighs on the mind of
members of the Government and I'm sure all people who are concerned.
And what I want, recognising that we are dealing with a government
that has sovereignty over East Timor, that's the Indonesian government,
and that's been the position now for 25 years, we want to drive
home the concerns that we have and it's opportune and appropriate
that I have a meeting with the Indonesian President tomorrow.
FAINE:
Good luck.
PRIME MINISTER:
Thank you.
FAINE:
All Australians are keen to see that resolved in a way that preserves
the human rights of the people....
PRIME MINISTER:
Well that is everybody's aspiration and we have to try and do
that in a way that is always consistent with Australia's own
national interest because that is the ultimate responsibility of any
government and any Prime Minister to look after the interests first
and foremost of the Australian people
FAINE:
Good luck. Thank you for your time this morning.
PRIME MINISTER:
Thanks John.