E&OE...........
Thank you very much Margaret, Cameron Thompson the Federal Member for Blair, Senator George Brandis the Senator for Queensland in the National Parliament, Todd and Holly, the principal of the school, other distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen.
I am delighted to share a few moments with you this afternoon. The welcomed I received as I walked in from the students was a little different from the welcome I received at the University of Queensland last night, but that just shows that a wonderfully free and diverse country we really live in. You really wouldn';t want to have it otherwise.
I';ve been told a little bit about some of the famous people that the Ipswich state high school has produced. There were one or two pretty famous Queensland sportsmen that this school that we';re speaking in has produced and this afternoon in this hall is an opportunity for me to acknowledge the thing that does more than anything else to hold this country together, and that is the work of people in a volunteer way at a local community level. I want to endorse the remarks made by Margaret on behalf of Rotary, the idea that people working together in a positive friendly way at a local level can solve just about any problem and meet just about any challenge. For those of you who are here this afternoon representing some of the older sections of the Australian community, particularly those from the RSL and all the other people of that generation to which all later generations of Australians owe so much, can I simply again as I did at the RSL congress in Brisbane yesterday, express the gratitude of a nation that is forever in your debt. Can I say to all the people that are involved in local community and sporting organisations, it is your efforts on Saturday mornings, on the weekends, that produce in the long run the champion footballers and cricketers and swimmers and athletes and tennis players which make this country so incredibly proud.
To the school students who are here I just have two very important messages. The first of those is that you live in a country and at a time of enormous good fortune and enormous opportunity. The world has challenges, many, and there are a lot of injustices in the world that in different ways all of us want to address and put right. There aren';t many countries in the world that are in as fortunate position as Australia. Through a combination of hard work, of a bit of good luck and some wise attitudes taken by people over the years this country is seen around the world as an ideal. It';s an open free country, cohesive friendly country, we are made up of people who';ve come different parts of the world but we all blend together pretty well and we';re all Australians before we';re anything else. And that is how it should always be. We';re a country that despite the challenges of the drought, and I know it';s very difficult for many people in this part of Queensland and in other parts of our nation, we';re are a country that by and large blessed by nature with a wonderfully benign climate in which to live.
You will leave school at a time of great opportunity. Don';t waste the opportunities you have. Always remember the contribution that your teachers have made to the moulding of your character and what you learn. Teaching is a very noble profession and I want to take the opportunity of acknowledging the contribution of all of the teachers who are here this afternoon and I think we ought to put our hands together for the teachers of Queensland. It';s not an easy job, it';s more challenging now than I think it was when I went to a school not terribly dissimilar from this, I went to a school called Canterbury Boys High School in Sydney. It was a school that had about 8-900 pupils at the time and although the climate wasn';t quite as balmy as it is here most of the time it was pretty pleasant. I haven';t forgotten those school days, at times I probably some aspects of them were a bit irrelevant, I questioned on a number of occasions some of the things that I was taught and told, no doubt you do the same and that';s part of the process of growing up and the process of learning. But as time has gone by I';ve looked back on those years and I';ve remembered with growing affection the contribution that many of the teachers at the school made to my capacity later in life, I hope to make some contribution to the Australian community.
The second thing I';d say to you and it is a message that I try to leave with any gathering including young people and pupils at schools or university students at university and that is always try and find the positive in the people that you relate to. I';ve found one invariable experience in life and that is the happy people I find are the people who always look for the good in somebody, the miserable people are the people who always are trying to find faults. The reality is that nobody is totally good, and there are very few people who are totally bad, there is normally something positive and inspirational and beneficial that you can find in anybody, even the person you sit next to in class who you might get a bit cranky about. Even the teacher you may not like or the kid down the street you may not get on with or the person who doesn';t play fair in the football match the weekend. You can normally find if you think hard enough, you can normally find something fairly nice to say about them and nice to think about them. And I have to say in my life';s experience that the really happy people I';ve known and I';ve known a lot of really happy people, you know what their secret is, they never complain about other people, they never say or she';s such and such or he';s a terrible person or you know so and so sort of thing, you never find them doing that, they always say oh isn';t so and so nice to have said hello with a smile at me this morning. Now somebody who may think that sounds corny, can I tell you it';s not because if you really want to be pretty positive and pretty happy about life thinking and trying to find the positive in people you mix with during the day, I can tell you you end up a great deal happier than the people who take the opposite point of view.
It';s very nice to be amongst you, I enjoy more than any other part of my job as Prime Minister, I enjoy the opportunity of visiting different parts of Australia and meeting the local communities of those different parts of Australia gathered together. Ipswich does have a special niche in the history, not only of Queensland and the history of Australia. It did have as Margaret said, it had what many people would describe as a battler beginning, it had a deep connection with the mining industry, it has produced over the years some very famous Australian sportsmen. But above everything else it';s a very warm hearted generous community. It really is.
But if you really want to find a demonstration that is a very classless egalitarian nation Australia, you come to places like Ipswich and you see people of all different backgrounds all mixing together trying to do the right thing by their fellow man and trying to produce a better society and better nation. So to all of those who are doing the final exam at the end of the year, your school certificate, you see I go from state to state and I have a different name, I mean it';s a high school certificate in New South Wales, it';s the VCE in Victoria. But to all of you who are doing that I hope you do as well as you want to, I hope you get the TAFE/college place where 70 per cent of students who leave school still go to. I hope those who want to go onto university get their places. I just wish all of you every success and every happiness and thank you very much for the warmth of the welcome that you';ve extended to me this afternoon.
Thank you.
[ends]