I begin by acknowledging the first Australians, on whose land we and whose cultures we celebrate as among the oldest continuing cultures in human history.
Thank you, Janette, for that wonderful and moving welcome on behalf of the Ngunnawal people.
Well, welcome to our home, The Lodge here in Canberra. This being our home I can now extend an invitation to those of you who wish to get a little bit closer out there, outside, there's room for about 100 folk up here if you wanted to get in a bit closer. Don't feel compelled, but the police will soon move you in.
Listening to the great welcome to country before from the representative of the Ngunnawal people reminds me afresh of the extraordinary privilege we have in Australia in sharing this vast continent with the first Australians. Those who have had their life, their culture, their community, their being, their art, their dance continuously in this continent for 30,000, 40,000 and 50,000 years - that's a long time. So for those of you who come as members of the diplomatic corps and forever describe this as a young country, in one respect you are right. In another respect you are profoundly wrong because we are older than most of you.
It is for us an enormous privilege to share this continent with our Indigenous brothers and sisters because, as I have travelled around Australia this week, celebrating Australia in each of our state and territory capitals, I have been reminded afresh of the great linkages we have with antiquity through the dance, celebration, and the art, of the first Australians. If those of you among us have had the privilege of seeing the great caves at Lascaux in France and Altamira in Spain, and other great ancient civilizational and cultural sites across the world, here with have with our Indigenous brothers and sisters this living link and this continuing cultural link to the deepest of deep antiquity, and as Prime Minister of Australia, as Prime Minister of all Australians, it gives me enormous pride and enormous pleasure in being able to reflect the achievements of this deep and ancient culture to the peoples of the world.
Secondly, you are here as our guests this evening. So long as the people endure us, Therese and I live here at The Lodge in Canberra. This is the home of the Australian Prime Minister and has been so since the 1920s, with the odd interruption. That wasn't a partisan remark. Let me inform you of a point of history. When the Depression broke out in 1929, this Lodge having opened in 1927, one of my Labor predecessors, Jim Scullin, declined to live in The Lodge. He did so for ideological and political reasons in the ravages of the Depression and lost the subsequent election, so when I say it has been occupied almost consistently since then, my reflection was more on times past than times recent.
Those who share this house with us, we have our son Marcus, who attends local school, we also have our dog and our cat, Abby and Jasper, and for those of you who haven't followed this at all, and because it is my bounded duty to act as the publisher's publicist, today we release this contribution to world literature. It is called Jasper and Abby and the Great Australia Day Kerfuffle. There will be a simultaneous interpretation of the meaning of kerfuffle by our interpreter service out there later on. Basically, it means a shemozzle. You don't know what a shemozzle is either, do you? Basically - chaos, and to our representatives here from the Nobel committee, our representatives from Oslo and Stockholm if I can make an early suggestion that this be considered for the Nobel Prize for literature.
The plot is succinct, it's sharp, it only goes for 26 pages the characters are very interesting because they are not human although, I'm in it. Don't laugh. The good guys, the dog and the cat, prevail at the end of the day. They rescue the Australia Day celebrations from complete calamity but I don't want to wreck the story for you. There are 600 people here this evening. Go out and buy a copy, because all the proceeds go to the Centre for Community Child Health at the Royal Children's Hospital in Melbourne. And if you buy a copy, not that I wish to labour this point at all, Jasper and Abbey have agreed to assemble for autographed paw prints at the entrance to the Lodge at a later occasion. And to our representatives here from the RSPCA, come to see me later and I'd love to sign this over to you with Therese as a copy in honour of the work that you do with the animals here in Canberra.
That was the serious part of my speech.
Friends, thank you for joining us to celebrate our national day. We in Australia love a party and we don't look for many excuses to celebrate, but this is a particular and legitimate national excuse for a celebration.
When you think of Australia it is the most unlikely of countries in many respects. Here we occupy this vast continent we have, I think, the third largest coastline in the world. Our maritime zone, I think, is the third largest in the world. We, in addition to our indigenous brothers and sisters, arrived here as an unlikely band of criminals 222 years ago, and to the British High Commissioner who would then mutter under his breath that nothing has changed since - could I say that it has been a remarkably, successful, political experiment.
Because in this country Australia, in the centuries and the decades since then we have welcomed people from all countries from across the world. We have become a completely multicultural society. We have representatives from every culture and country in creation. It has been an enormous enrichment to our Australian life, our way of being, the food that we eat, the dance that we celebrate, the music that we hear, that all these countries and cultures have contributed to the shape and the texture of modern Australia.
We are among the oldest continuing democracies in the world and we hold our freedom dearly. It is a freedom that we have defended and continue to defend into the future. But in that freedom, we defend also the right to diversity but also we cherish our unity as a nation.
In the week just past I've been speaking a lot around Australia about the spirit that is Australia. If I was to summarise it in a couple of short phrases it would be along these lines. In Australia we see ourselves as animated by a spirit of the 'can do'. That is, to make things happen. We are a practical people. We want to see things change from what is good to something that is better, from something bad into something good. When we are confronted with a practical challenge our first instinct is not to simply complain about it. Our first instinct is, well what can we do about to improve it, to change it for the better.
We see ourselves as animated by this spirit of the 'can do' because we have had to craft a country for a continent, a continent for a county and we have done so with our bare hands.
Yet there is another spirit which animates Australians and it is this, it is the spirit of the fair go. The spirit of compassion, the spirit of reaching out to those who need a helping hand, whether they are our friends, whether they are our neighbours or whether they are people we have never met. Whether it is the good people of Sumatra who were devastated by Tsunami five years ago, or the good people of Haiti who have been devastated by an earthquake most recently. Our first instinct, as Australians, both home and abroad has been how can we help our friends and our neighbours in need.
We have, about us, a national culture and a spirit that is this nation which holds these truths to be one, that we can celebrate individual achievement, enterprise, success, and the triumph of the human spirit and human imagination on the one hand, and have that as comfortable partner with a spirit of compassion and care when looking after our fellow human beings.
So, in a sentence or two, that is the spirit of Australia.
What we have here today, gathered among us, the representatives of so many community and church and charitable organisations from the city of Canberra, are the living embodiment of that spirit of work here in our local community, and to the members of the diplomatic corps, your local community. Those who make difference to those who need a helping hand in our community; the church and charitable sector to assist those families who have difficulty paying the rent next week or put food on the table; the sporting organisations who make it possible for our phenomenal national achievements in community sporting participation to roll on week after week, year after year, involving families and kids in team sports and all of that means for a child's development.
So to each of you who are community leaders and representatives here, from our city of Canberra, our nation's capital, as Prime Minister of the country, as a resident of this city, can I say, thank you for the work that you do, you embody, here in our community, the spirit of Australia.
To our from friends abroad, can I also make some remarks. I've described Australia's spirit as a 'can do' spirit and the spirit of a fair go. That is, the spirit of enterprise, the spirit of achievement but the spirit, also, of compassionate engagement and deep engagement with the affairs of the region and the world.
For us, these values which make up Australia do not stop there at the continental shelf. We seek to reflect them with our engagement with the world. We will do so imperfectly. Occasionally we will irritate some of them. We do not do so intentionally. As Australians' our aspiration is this: to be the friend of all and the enemy of none and we would hope to be able to work in the closest cooperation with our friends and partners across the region and the world.
To the governments that you represent, here in our country Australia, could I extend, through you as their diplomatic representatives, my best and personal greetings on this our national day. We value our relationships with our oldest and continuing friends, partners and allies as we value our relationships and friendships and partnerships with our newest friends and partners and neighbours as well, because in this globalised world we are all on this planet, Mother Earth, together. As a consequence we share challenges and responsibilities for maintaining the good order and good governance of planet earth and the human family more broadly.
The challenges we face as an international community are vast. They are continuing and some are new - the challenges of the Millennium Development Goals and the elimination of poverty. They do not often fill the pages of the newspapers but for the 2 million of our fellow human beings who this evening are below $2 a day, for them this is a very real and daily and grinding experience. There is nothing ennobling about poverty at home or abroad.
So, our challenges, to deal with the global and continuing scourge of poverty; to deal also with the great and continuing challenge of nuclear disarmament in delivering a safer world community for us all; and the great planetary challenge we face of climate change. These are challenges enough for our community, our global community, to work together to make a difference. These are where our efforts, as representatives of countries of goodwill should focus themselves in the year and the decade ahead.
I conclude with this - as we embark upon this New Year and as we embark upon this new and second decade of the 21st century, let us as always, as all governments and all countries, have about us a very simple approach: a very simple sense of the possible; a very simple approach to alternative possibilities.
We are all human beings. We come from different cultural traditions, we come from many different religious traditions. Our experiences are vastly different. But we are united by the common bonds of the human family.
It is our choice, as human beings, whether we make a difference on climate change or not. It is our choice, as human beings, whether we make a difference and choose peace or war. It is our choice as human beings that we make a difference to those who suffer poverty this very day in so many counties and continents around the world.
Sometimes, when we are in the business of politics, including international politics, we conclude that it is the responsibility of some mysterious force out there to make a difference. I think on occasions like this it's important to remind us all that we are human beings - we elect our leaders and some of us are leaders and we therefore have a common responsibility to the human family.
How we think about these things affects, fundamentally, how we act on these things. If we think of peace; if we think of preserving our planet; if we think of an age in the future when we do not have nuclear weapons; and how we can make the necessary steps to achieve those goals - you know something? It brings those goals just one bit closer than they would have otherwise be.
Thank you, my friends, for spending time with Therese and I at our residence here in Canberra, the Lodge. You are welcome guests among us as representatives of this local community, as representatives of the diplomatic community. I wish you all a very, very happy Australia Day and I look forward to working with you all in meeting the great challenges of 2010.
This is the fun bit. I get to have a drink now and you've been here for an hour having a drink. I have a very simple and formal responsibility as the Prime Minister of the Commonwealth of Australia and it is at this stage to propose a very simple toast, in one word, to Australia.
Australia.
I thank you.