I acknowledge the First Australians on whose land we meet, and whose cultures we celebrate as among the oldest continuing cultures in human history.
In particular, I acknowledge Mrs Pat Green and Mr Frank Horton, representatives of the indigenous community of Tasmania.
I also want to acknowledge the families and friends who lost loved ones here at Port Arthur on April 28 1996, a dark day that remains in our memory.
It is an honour to be present here at this site of such great national significance:
* a site of outstanding cultural significance;
* the first convict site to be listed on the National Heritage List in Australia, and
* the first of the eleven sites on the Australian Convict Sites World Heritage Nomination that will be considered by the World Heritage Committee next year.
After the revelations last month that about the depth of my own convict ancestry - perhaps I should feel at home here.
Indeed, not just one, but seven distinct convict lines - I am almost a thoroughbred when it comes to my convict past.
One of my forebears from seven generations back was transported to Sydney in 1789, then sent on to Norfolk Island - at the time, the only convict settlements in the British Empire more remote than Port Arthur.
A little-known historical footnote is that Port Arthur later became the most remote penal settlement in the Empire, when Norfolk Island ceased as a convict settlement after 1855 and transferred its remaining convicts here.
Port Arthur was also the last penal settlement to receive direct funding from London, with that practice continuing to 1877.
Port Arthur and Australian history
Coming to Port Arthur is a confronting experience for any Australian.
This is the most significant convict heritage site in our nation.
In bricks and mortar, this stark landscape confronts us with the dramatic story of our nation's beginnings - a story so familiar that we easily lose sight of just how remarkable and improbable it is.
The story of a faraway land populated by the cast-offs of an empire - men and women who remain in the blood lines of so many of us today.
A land out of which arose a nation, that within a century would lead the world in social reform and economic prosperity.
Against a backdrop of such exceptional beauty here at Port Arthur, these foreboding buildings remind us that our nation began with the deprivation of liberty for some 166,000 convicts transported to Australia - 72,000 of whom came to Tasmania, or as it was, Van Dieman's Land.
The scale of convict transportation to Australia was far greater than any other penal colony in the world - whether we measure it in terms of the numbers sent, the duration of the journey or the vastness of the areas settled.
This site invites us to come inside - inside the story of the Australian nation, and its extraordinary journey.
Just consider how Port Arthur speaks to us of the achievement and contradictions of our origins.
A nation founded by convicts - who on this island comprised a majority of the population until at least the 1850s.
Yet consider the achievement of our nation:
* Australia became one of the earliest nations to give common people the right to vote, making us now one of the world's oldest and most stable democracies.
* One of the first nations to introduce women's suffrage.
* A society that - with the conspicuous exception of its relations with Indigenous Australians - found ways to resolve its conflicts peacefully, and without resort to civil war.
* A nation that became one of the first to embrace the rights of working people: the eight hour working day, the living wage, and crucial social supports like the age pension and workers' compensation.
* A nation whose people, by the beginning of the twentieth century, enjoyed the best living standards in the world.
And all of this occurred within the lifetimes of men and women who had set foot upon Australian soil as convicts.
Our first Federal Parliament even included a former convict in William Henry Groom - a Queenslander, representing the seat of Darling Downs.
And he was a conservative to boot - with his son subsequently also representing Darling Downs in the Parliament, and serving as Attorney General of the Commonwealth some years later.
Indeed, Charles Darwin had remarked of the penal colony as early as 1836, that:
“as a means of making men outwardly honest - of converting vagabonds most useless in one hemisphere into active citizens in another, and thus giving birth to a new and splendid country - a grand centre of civilisation - it had succeeded to a degree perhaps unparalleled in history.”
The Australian story truly is remarkable - into a large convict migration, underpinned too by the extraordinary ancient cultures of the Indigenous people whose role in our history we are only now beginning to understand and recognise.
The Separate Prison
Port Arthur reflects many of the contradictions of the early Australian nation.
Though Port Arthur is perhaps the greatest symbol of convict Australia, in fact most convicts did not serve out their sentence behind bars - rather, the prison was reserved for secondary offenders.
Despite the exceptionally beautiful landscape, Port Arthur was a harsh, cold and fearful place - as depicted in the great 19th century novel by Marcus Clarke, For The Term of His Natural Life.
Yet there is another side to Port Arthur.
It was a place of isolation and punishment - yet as the work of the Authority has helped us understand, this was also a place where prisoners enjoyed access to an extensive library of contemporary books, and established a substantial garden.
It was a centre of industry and skilled workmanship - from shipbuilding, blacksmithing and shoemaking to carpentry and brick making - skills that many of the convicts acquired after coming to the colony as boys.
Indeed, the Separate Prison that we re-open today was intended to achieve a radical reform of penal practices.
It was conceived not as a place of punishment, but a place for prisoners to contemplate their failings and to be reformed.
Floggings were replaced with extended periods of solitary confinement designed to reform the individual through reflection and isolation.
Two new approaches to penal reform influenced the Separate Prison - first, the concept of the prison as a penitentiary, or place of repentance, developed by Pennsylvania's Quakers with the Eastern State Penitentiary in 1829.
They had hoped ‘the silent system' and not the lash would transform hardened criminals.
Second, Port Arthur was influenced by the reformist utilitarianism of the philosopher Jeremy Bentham, in which treatment of prisoners was to be measured, predictable and efficient - not harsh, arbitrary, unpredictable or capricious.
In turn, both these approaches to penal systems were largely abandoned.
In understanding the significance of Port Arthur, we should understand the context of social disorder, injustice and foment in Europe against which the early colonists sought to create an ordered society in this new land.
Previous decades had seen:
* the Industrial Revolution;
* the American War of Independence
* the explosive growth of urban populations;
* the political upheaval created by the French Revolution with its overthrow of the monarchy and established church, and then many long years of war until Napoleon's defeat in 1815, and
* a widespread fear of crime and social breakdown, which underpinned the harsh system of transportation.
Throughout the 19th century, many of those arriving in Australia left behind them extreme poverty or even starvation.
Life in this place was difficult and unfamiliar.
Yet life in Australia also offered the possibility of freedom - ultimately for both free settlers and convicts - a new start, with possibilities that simply did not exist back at home.
Those possibilities were to be realised by successive generations who founded the Australian nation.
And it is here we see something of the beginnings of the Australian nation - founded in adversity; people forced from foreign lands and others who came in pursuit of opportunity, both availing themselves of the freedom this land offered to them all.
From early on Australians had a special understanding of the reality of the underdog, creating the strong commitment to ensuring a fair go for all.
Fairness is etched deep into the Australian soul.
I congratulate the Port Arthur Historic Site Management Authority and the Conservation and Infrastructure Team for the exceptional work they have done on the restoration of the Separate Prison.
Congratulations to the architects and all of the skilled professionals and tradespeople who have put their heart and soul into such a complex restoration project.
I know it has been a complex, painstaking process to reconstruct this part of the Separate Prison using traditional skills.
But this work will give visitors a far better appreciation and connection to a place of such heritage significance.
It is a great achievement, and I understand that the Authority has plans for significant additional work that will further enhance the experience of visiting Port Arthur.
The Australian Government believes that it is vital that we continue to identify and protect the places integral to our national story, so that they can help us remember and understand that we are part of a living history.
On behalf of the Australian Government, I also thank the Tasmanian Government for their partnership on this important heritage initiative.
It is vital that we continue to appreciate, recognise and protect our investment in our National and World Heritage sites.
They are important to our history, our future and to the local economy of many parts of Australia.
Recent studies indicate that Australia's World Heritage properties generate $12 billion annually and support over 120,000 jobs across the nation.
Port Arthur is a great example of how heritage places can contribute to national and local tourism.
Hundreds of thousands of people from across Tasmania, Australia and the world make the journey to Port Arthur every year, ensuring that this site is both protected and appreciated.
We treasure Port Arthur for what it teaches us about our past, for the way it enriches our present, and for its contribution to our future.
Thank you to everyone for your efforts in contributing to its conservation.
I am pleased now to present Barry Jones with a plaque marking the National Heritage Listing of Port Arthur.
And I am delighted to declare the Separate Prison of Port Arthur open again, here at this site of such great national significance.
This will help ensure that this vital heritage site is accessible to future generations - so they too can begin to understand the extraordinary story of the founding of the Australian nation.
A nation without history is like a person without memory. And memory helps shape our hopes and vision for the future. Let us therefore celebrate our history as together we craft the future for this great nation, Australia.