Your Excellency the Governor of Victoria, distinguished Australians one and all, distinguished representatives of foreign governments one and all.
This Australia Day as in times past provides us with a national moment for reflection. A national moment for reflecting on our nation's past achievements and a national moment for reflection on the challenges which lie ahead.
It is also a time where we reflect more deeply of the values which inspire us as a nation. Those which have shaped us over many decades and centuries and those which will shape us and guide us for the years ahead.
One of those deepest values is respect. Respect for one another, respect for the traditions we variously bring to these shores and respect most fundamentally for the first Australians on whose land we meet and whose culture we celebrate as the oldest continuing culture in human history.
This is a marvellous land. A land rich with opportunity, a land where we have managed to craft a nation for a continent and a continent for a nation. We've done so through blood, sweat and tears over many generations. We've done so through times which have been difficult and through times of triumph. Times of tragedy, times that have required great feats of human endurance.
And through all of that, what we have exhibited is this core value as well. Not just respect. Not just tolerance. Not just acceptance of difference. But above all these things, an overpowering sense of our unity as a people and as a nation.
The wonderful thing that I celebrate each day about this nation of ours, Australia, and which I see reflected on the faces around this room is from where we have come to fashion this thing called Australia. Each person bringing to this great culture and to this great land something new, something different, something diverse. Yet all united in this great value that we attach to this land, Australia.
A land which we hold dear, a land which we will defend and a land which we will use for the benefit of others as well, beyond our shores. Unity and diversity, what an extraordinary and great achievement of this land, Australia; this country, Australia.
His Excellency said before that, in his remarks, that he's recently been with our Young Ambassadors for Science. I think I can spot them from their shirts. There seems to be a veritable squadron of them here, from Australia and from beyond our shores. If I could add my words of welcome to each of them.
And then with a word of encouragement. This nation, shaped by great values of respect and tolerance, great values of our unity of purpose amidst the diversity, which has given our nation expression. Also values of deep learning, the pursuit of knowledge through education and within that the absolute importance of science.
A nation prospers to the extent to which it values the education of its young. A nation prospers if within that education we also attach great priority to the wonder that is science. And science is a wonder. It is to be encouraged and fuelled and instilled in the minds of the young across our nation.
So for those of you who are contemplating what the future may hold for you in the sciences which have grabbed and arrested your passions, what I'd say to you as your Prime Minister is - seize hold of that passion, hold it dear and fashion a future for yourselves, your country and the world.
If we reflected back on a mere 200 years of the settled history of this country and where scientific knowledge stood for the latter part of the 18th century and where it now stands, and wonder aloud at the achievements of our scientists from Banks to the present - Joseph Banks, not those which take your money - this has been an achievement writ large; an achievement from which we have all benefited. An achievement which lies under so much of what we now benefit from in medicine, from what we so benefit across all the applications.
This nation, Australia, as it approaches its 21st century must and will invest in our education. Must and will invest in our schools, in our early childhood centres, in our universities, in our technical colleges, in our research institutes, and within that take the status of science to a new level.
My vision for this country is that we are the best educated, best trained, best skilled workforce anywhere in the world. To do that we don't just sit around and hope for it to happen. We have to fashion it, we have to structure it, we have to fund it, we have to invest for it.
But that is one thing. The other part of this - to have among us a new cadre of young, enthusiastic scientific pioneers who will take that message of science into the future. So that is our vision.
Beyond that, as his Excellency has also indicated, the year ahead contains within it extraordinary challenges given the impact of the global financial crisis.
I said in remarks in Melbourne earlier today that I have great confidence in our ability as a nation to see our way through this crisis. I have great confidence in our people to exhibit a resilience, a steeliness, a calm and a resolve which together with appropriately formed policy will see Australia through.
Resilient, strong, purposeful. But through that purpose and through that process, extending always a helping hand to others at home and abroad. This crisis will be a test of who we are as a people, who we are as a community and who we are as neighbours because many will be hurt by it.
One response will be ours as Government to extend an appropriate hand of support for those who need it. And we will. But at a different level, at a very personal level, at a very pastoral level, it is important that each of us takes on the responsibility of extending the hand of friendship when those who suffer from this crisis experience that suffering.
As I look out across this extraordinary room, which I'm told is his Excellency's breakfast room, which he uses on small occasions. I'm sorry. It's the lunch room. It's not a bad room is it? You know the whole story about Buckingham Palace and the Ballroom so I won't take you though that one again.
But when I look out across this extraordinary room, this sea of faces, all people of leadership within their communities, each one of you in your own sphere - leaders. Reflect on this as the year unfolds.
Leadership will be called for at all levels, to support and encourage those who are going to find this year tough and rough. Not just within the churches and the charitable sector, that is their permanent mission, their lot, their vocation. But beyond that as well.
Leadership in every community organisation, every sporting group, every other social organisation in our country. Small business, local government. The task of leadership will be out there to extend the hand of friendship and support as well. And as I look in the faces of those here, I have absolute confidence that those values of leadership will be called forth and delivered, as the nation at times requires.
I might conclude on a personal note, and say something about this great city of Melbourne in the great state of Victoria. As I said earlier today I can do so with complete impartiality of being an independent Queensland observer. You doubt the independence of Queenslanders? Well spotted.
You know you live in a fantastic city. This is a wonderful part of Australia. This city is a jewel in the nation's crown as I said in earlier remarks today. And I believe it has an enormous future in shaping Australia's destiny. Hold it close. Husband it well. Shape its buildings and its culture, its intellectual life and its cultural life in a way which enriches the nation as you have so much done in the past. This is a fantastic part of Australia and be proud of it.
And to conclude on one further personal note. We have among us today a centenarian in training - Dame Elisabeth Murdoch. (Applause)
By the way how just great to see, I visited Dame Elisabeth this afternoon. And I was down there at Cruden and extending Therese and my birthday wishes for an event which is about to unfold. I left there at about ten past five. I got here at four minutes past six. Dame Elisabeth was happily saying farewell to me. And she arrived three minutes after me here. This is a centenarian on wheels, with turbo-charge.
And if his Excellency would extend to me the great indulgence which I'm about to exercise even if he doesn't, but I ask you one and all, in anticipation of this event which is about to happen, her birthday, and to reflect also her great contribution philanthropically to the state, to the city and to this nation - Three cheers for Dame Elisabeth Murdoch. Hip hip. Hooray. Hip hip. Hooray. Hip hip. Hooray. And a very happy Australia Day.