Julia Gillard (Lalor, Australian Labor Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Hansard source

Mr Harry Jenkins, Speaker of the House of Representatives; Senator John Hogg, President of the Senate; the Hon. Tony Abbott, Leader of the Opposition; honourable members of the Australian parliament; distinguished guests one and all. Mr President, in March this year I was the fourth Australian Prime Minister to speak in your people's representative house—like Prime Ministers Menzies, Hawke and Howard, each of us received as an ally and a friend. Today you are the fourth American President to speak here. Like each of your predecessors, you come here as a friend and as an ally as well. Mr President, welcome to our parliament. You meet us as your predecessors did: a people enlivened by a spirit of confidence and resolve. As friends we recognise the same spirit in the nation you lead—one you would no doubt express in those famous words, 'Yes, we can.' As allies in this year of anniversaries we recall that spirit in so much we have done together in the years we have shared: a spirit we showed in 1941, when a terrible Pacific war began which tested us both deeply and cost us both so much but in which we ultimately prevailed; a spirit we shared in 1951, when leaders from both our nations imagined and then brought about a new future for us in the world as allies, not just as friends; and a spirit we felt deeply on September 11, when we began our fight together to deny terrorism a safe haven and to bring justice for terrorism's victims—justice, Mr President, which was delayed but which this year could not be denied.

Mr President, as allies we look forward always, and this is the year in which we have made plans for a future just as great, a year in which we have drawn on the confidence and resolve we share, knowing that together we can prevail. Confident we can secure our own nations and cooperate for peace in Afghanistan, where together we are seeing the mission through to transition; in our region, where the expanded cooperation we have announced will see our alliance remain a stabilising influence in a new century of regional change—a new step agreed on your visit here. But, more than a new step for our two nations, it is a renewal of our alliance itself. And, Mr President, confident we can create jobs and restore global growth at the G20 and APEC in our decisions to forge an ambitious Trans-Pacific Partnership, in our discussions here on the prospects for trade and at the East Asia Summit this weekend, where we will work together to keep the doors of trade open so the whole of the world's economy grows, creating jobs for all of the world's people, including our own. Confident we can secure clean energy and combat climate change too, working together, taking our part in global action, encouraging tariff cuts in environmental goods, promoting energy efficiency and sharing plans for low-emission technologies, and each of us driving change at home.

Mr President, the resolve and confidence of our two nations has always served a high purpose. Since its founding in 1951, ours has been an alliance for a secure future but it has always been more. Our alliance was anticipated a decade earlier in the judgments of an Australian Prime Minister and the resolve of an American President, and the partnership between us is still deeply imprinted with the personal character and public ideals of those two great men—for it has never been simply a treaty to defend our interests or to protect our territory; it was then and it is now a friendship dedicated to the values we share in the life of the world.

Mr President, in Perth there is a library dedicated to the memory of my great predecessor John Curtin, our great wartime leader, the man who looked to America without any pangs. There you find a book given to him during his visit to the United States in 1944. Prime Minister Curtin and President Roosevelt met as leaders of two great nations at war, but as two great leaders they looked ahead to the peace. Curtin returned to his country with much more than a plan for security; he brought back and kept as a treasure an illustrated book, an edition dedicated to President Roosevelt's four essential human freedoms: freedom of speech, freedom to worship, freedom from want and freedom from fear—freedoms for which so many diggers and GIs died, freedoms for which Curtin and Roosevelt were each still working on on their own final day. And in our work together in the world now, we are true to that great charter still—to peace and security, for jobs and growth, with a clean environment and clean energy. Mr President, we welcome you here as you come: as an ally, a partner and a friend. Mr President, welcome to our parliament.

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