Thank you Terry for that challenge. I've always been lousy on the didge. But I'm up for a tutorial.
Distinguished Australians one and all. And I begin by acknowledging the First Australians on whose land we meet and whose cultures we celebrate as the oldest continuing cultures in human history.
Reflect on that fact for a moment on this our national day. That we are privileged to have among us these cultures who link this nation with deepest antiquity, unique across the world, unique across the world, in the dance, in the music, in the beautiful paintings we find etched in the caves of the Kimberley and beyond. Paintings more ancient than those we read about in our history books, in ancient Spain and ancient France. Indeed the deepest reach to our deepest past. And we are so privileged as a people and as a nation to share this continent with these great cultures.
On this Australia Day, what are the values that have shaped this vast land into the great nation that it has become? I believe there are three - courage, resilience and compassion. Courage, knowing the dangers that lie ahead on the road, but defying those dangers and taking the decision to proceed. Resilience, when the road becomes hard and the comforts scarce, staying the course until the journey's end. Compassion, when we extend an outstretched hand to those who fall by the road, who stumble or who are injured, and to help see them through as seeing them through is seeing all of us through. Mateship, a fair go, a fair go for all.
These great values have enlivened our national soul for more than a century. They have shaped our past, they steel us for the present, and they secure our future. They are part of our nation's moral compass, they are part of our nation's moral purpose. We see these great values etched deep in our pioneers, in our farmers, in those who have championed women's suffrage, those who have fought in the mud and the blood of the Somme, those who forged the spirit of Kokoda. Courage, resilience and compassion.
We see them at work across our nation today. The army of volunteers who literally are the lifeblood of every local community across our nation. Those who care for the sick and for the dying, without commendation, without public recognition, but because it is the right, humane and human thing to do. And those who we see today still proudly wearing the uniform of Australia in foreign lands. The amazing story of Trooper Donaldson VC, a hero writ large for our nation today. Once again courage, resilience and compassion.
Values that have shaped our past that steel ourselves for the present, values that will secure our future. Values on which we will now need to draw deeply as we confront the great challenges of the year that lies ahead, replete with its uncertainties. Challenges from crises beyond our shores.
This great global crisis is not of Australia's making, but as Australians we are left to deal with it. And deal with it we will. The causes of this crisis are complex. But ultimately they go to a set of values that are the very antithesis of our own. Values of unrestrained greed, encouraged by an ideology of unfettered markets. Nothing of courage and certainly nothing of concern or compassion for others, or the consequences of their actions.
But now we face the living consequences here at home of this unrestrained greed abroad. And those consequences are not statistics, they are the jobs, they are the lives, they are the families of working Australians across our nation. From the south west tip of Western Australia, to the Bowen Basin in Queensland, and as the year unfolds, most points in between as the rising tide of unemployment that last year inundated America and Europe and China now laps on our shores as well.
Our challenge as a Government is to steer Australia through. It will be hard. There will be setbacks. But of this I am absolutely persuaded, that steeled by the values of our past and guided by the policy we have set and supported by a community engaged by the needs of our neighbours, we will prevail. As a nation, we will come through this crisis. We will come through this crisis more resilient than we were even before.
Courage, resilience, compassion. Three great values that anchored in the realisation of a fourth, and that is that we are all in this together. We are all in this together. Business, unions, bosses, workers, government, the community, governments federal, state and local. Those who have come to this land 200 years ago, those who are welcomed into the nation's family today. Indigenous Australians, non-Indigenous Australians. We are all in this together.
To our Indigenous leaders, and those who call for a change to our national day, let me say a simple, respectful, but straightforward no.
We are a free country and it is natural and right from time to time, that there will be conversations about such important symbols for our nation. It is equally right as a free country that those of us charged with political leadership provide a straightforward response.
There is much controversy in many lands about national days. Examine the history of France, of Spain, of Italy, of Germany, of the United States. The Declaration of Independence at a time when one third of the American colonists supported the British Crown. There've always been controversies about national days.
But this is not the point. The central point is what we then resolve to fashion as a nation? That is the central point. And whether the nation we fashioned through our resolve, our energies and our efforts is a nation which includes all, not just some. And that is why I support this, our national day. Because in Australia, we have resolved to build such a nation. A nation for Australians all, not just for Australians some.
A nation which has apologised for the mistakes of the past, and there have been many. But a nation now resolved to close the gap. A nation now resolved to close the gap in education, in health, and employment, and those things which matter in people's daily and practical lives. A nation of Australians all. Not just of some. So let us embrace this great practical challenge which lies ahead in closing the gap. Embraced and supported by the goodwill of all Australians, to get behind this great project, so that the gap that exists between us in the life opportunities which present themselves can be closed.
To those of you who join us today as members of the Australian family for the first time, can I say welcome. Welcome to the nation's family. When citizenship was introduced by Ben Chifley 60 years ago, it was to reflect this great wave of migration which came to our shores after the last world war. And Chifley and those who worked with him said among themselves, let us embrace formally this construction of the new Australian nation. No longer British subjects past, but Australian citizens future.
And today you join their ranks. And as Prime Minister of Australia I am so glad that you are doing so, because you bring with you dynamism, you bring with you determination, and you bring with you diversity.
The great spirit of Australia has been this - to fashion unity from diversity. And to do so through tolerance and respect, and through the energisation of the nation. And that is what your joining us today does for the year ahead and for the future.
As we have done throughout our national history, resolving afresh to fashion a nation for a continent, and a continent for a nation, and you our newest members. The values on which this nation has been built and which will guide us for the future - courage, resilience, compassion, and to add that fourth to realise that we are all in this together. And shaped with these great values that have guided us so well in the past, let us proceed with absolute confidence, with absolute confidence to embrace the challenges that now face us for the future.
A happy Australia Day to you all.