Speech at ANZAC Service

Bullecourt, France

Speech. Check against delivery, E&OE

25 April 2011

Sons and daughters of France,

Sons and daughters of Australia,

We come here today to Bullecourt to honour those who have given service to their nations in times of conflict.

We honour the veterans, such as those brave veterans who stand behind me today.

We honour the people of Bullecourt who have experienced such death and destruction in this beautiful town in this beautiful part of Northern France.

We honour the people of France who have known such tragedy in wars through the centuries past.

We honour the veterans of all the Allied nations who participated proudly in the defence of France.

We honour in particular those Australians who gave their lives here at the battles of Bullecourt.

And we honour too their families. Their families should be proud indeed of the contribution that they have made to the outcome of this great battle of humankind.

The battles of the Western Front, of which Bullecourt is famous, were battles like those fought so often before by the youth of this continent.

The headstones tell the stories.

So often young boys.

Barely young men.

Not many old enough to have lived much at all and by the photographs, few of them or at least some of them had yet begun to shave.

Young men who nonetheless answered the call when Belgium and then France, became the victims of aggression.

Young men came from across the world.

And in our case, Australia's case, all of these young men were volunteers.

Of the nearly half a million Australians who wore the uniform of Australia, nearly one tenth of our population, those who came here came freely, of their own choice.

All were volunteers.

Some say they went as innocents to the slaughter.

The victims of the permanent condition of war — ordered by old men, fought by young men.

There are partial truths in all these things.

But there is something else besides: that is, in the democratic traditions from which we have sprung, a culture of common service in pursuit of the most basic ideals of our common humanity, that ideal of freedom.

A culture of common service which lies deep within us and which can never be extinguished.

The instinct for service is bigger and broader than the crude nationalisms of which we have seen too much in the wars of the 20th century.

Because this sense of service for a broader humanity was also alive in the recruiting stations across country Australia in 1914 when what was then called “little Belgium” was attacked.

And once again when France became the object of the Schlieffen Plan.

Australians, New Zealanders, Canadians, Indians and others rallied not just because Britain was at war, although that certainly loomed large in the thinking of many.

People rallied too because there were principles at stake, albeit sometimes blurred, principles such as the defence of the weak against the strong; resistance against tyranny; the defence of democracy.

We saw these principles at work again in the Second World War, however imperfectly, as countries like Czechoslovakia were left to their own fates, before the democracies once again finally rallied in common service and common cause to the collective cause and that cause again was freedom.

Once more, the youth of our democracies rallied to the cause.

Placing self a distant third after service and then sacrifice.

And so the young people of the world, wearing the uniforms of the democracies, stood firm against fascism, and secured us once again peace.

We see these principles again today entrenched in the Charter of the United Nations.

The call to service extends beyond the duties of our men and women in uniform although they are its core.

We have seen it in the hundreds of peacekeeping operations authorised by the United Nations in the three quarters of a century since the UN's formation out of the ashes of the Second World War.

We see it in the countless humanitarian operations run by the United Nations and other international agencies across the world, invariably meaning the difference between life and death for so many of the innocents affected by war.

Again we see the youth of the world, in particular the youth of our democracies raising their hands and saying, as their forebears have said before, “I am ready, send me,” “I will go, send me,” “I will serve, send me.”

With Medecins Sans Frontieres.

With World Vision.

With UNHCR.

With humanitarian organisations hard at work within the darkest crevasses, the most forgotten corners are often the most dangerous places in the world, all making a difference to lives, often lived without hope until at least the hand of human solidarity reaches in.

All demonstrating that there is an intrinsic worth in our common humanity that causes human beings to give.

Not just to take.

Not just to opt for the quiet life.

Not just to opt for the selfish life.

We think in particular of those today who are putting their lives on the line so that the people of Libya might know freedom from tyranny.

The airmen.

The naval staff.

The freedom fighters themselves.

The humanitarian workers.

And the journalists who bring us news of their service, and who lose their lives in doing so.

In other words, those who choose to make a difference with their young lives, in pursuit of an ideal much larger than themselves, ideals much higher than the pursuit of the comfortable life, ideals which continue to strike a chord across our common humanity, ideals which at their best are blind to questions of ethnicity, of idealogy, of religious faith.

And in a globalising world where borders less and less delineate the boundaries of our conscience, this now, this global solidarity, is more important than ever before.

In Australia we have seen this sense of service in response to the natural disasters we have recently suffered.

In floods, in fires, in cyclones, the youth of our nation have done their forebears proud.

Like those who have gone before, they have become volunteers too, often carrying a huge part of the burden.

Often now reaching out in ways to those who have suffered far worse in countries around the world, most recently Japan.

We also see a spirit of purpose and, I believe, an associated search for purpose, alive in the faces of those tens of thousands of young Australians, such as those here today, who voyage the world to sit quietly in the cold at Gallipoli, here in their thousands across the Western Front and those who in increasing numbers now walk and reflect along Kokoda and Sandakan.

I do not believe these are the idle searches of frustrated amateur historians.

I believe it is more visceral than that.

It's about our continued national meaning and national purpose as Australia.

It's also about personal meaning and personal purpose.

It's about the wisdom of the ages discovered anew, that it is in fact in giving that we receive. For this is the enduring spirit that is Anzac. An ANZAC spirit alive and well in our young people today. Young people inspired by their kindred youth who lay down their lives in these fields around Bullecourt for their fellowmen, so many years ago.

Their lives, their hopes, their dreams ahead of them, then the call of conscience came — and the call to service came with it.

And these brave young Australians paid the ultimate price here at the beautiful fields of Bullecourt.

And for their families here with us today you are rightly proud of each and every one of them for what they have done for their nation, and what they have done for this nation, France, and what they have done for the cause of liberty.

They still speak to us today with an eloquence beyond the grave.

They say to us today there is no greater honour than to wear the uniform of Australia — as our young men and women do so proudly to this day in the far-flung fields of Afghanistan, of East Timor, of the Solomons, of the Sinai, of the Sudan and beyond.

They say to us today there is great honour to serve the ideals of our common humanity, whether in uniform or whether as civilians and the theatres are many.

For our friends from France, let me say this:

We salute the courage of your airman as they deliver support to freedom fighters in Libya because they follow in a long French tradition in defence of liberty.

Nous saluons le courage de vos aviateurs, au moment où ils apportent leur soutien aux défenseurs de la liberté de la Libye, car ils poursuivent une longue tradition française de défense de la liberté.

For young people everywhere, the opportunities of service, at home and abroad, are many.

And from everything I have seen, I have the utmost confidence that the youth of today — far from being the selfish and self-obsessed generation that some have described them to be — will rise to the call of their forebears and do as their forebears have done before them.

And for this, the fine veterans of Bullecourt will indeed be well pleased at the legacy they have left.

Lest we forget.

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