Tony Abbott (Warringah, Liberal Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Hansard source

Madam Speaker, Mr President, the arrival of the first Britons here in Australia could hardly have been less auspicious. They had just sailed halfway round the world. Remarkably, thanks to Governor Phillip's good management, only 48 of 1,400 had died, on a journey that was an 18th century version of travelling to the moon or landing on a comet. Of those on the First Fleet, the very best that could be said of them was that they had been chosen by the finest judges in England!

Even the soldiers were guards, not warriors. Yet, over the ensuing two centuries, the descendants of convicts have helped to create a society that is as free, fair and prosperous as any on earth, so that to be born Australian is to have won the lottery of life. The first Christian sermon preached in this country took as its text: 'What shall I render unto the Lord for all his blessings towards me.' This indeed has always characterised us: gratitude for what we have and a fierce determination to build on it.

Modern Australia has an Aboriginal heritage, a British foundation and a multicultural character. There is so much that Britain has given to us. There is so much, indeed, that Britain has given to everyone: parliamentary democracy, the common law, constitutional monarchy and English—the world's first or second language. What would this world be without the plays of Shakespeare, the music of the Beatles, the advances of the first Industrial Revolution, the humanity of Wilberforce and the determination of Churchill? What would this world be without the British democratic ethos which took hold in Australia, Canada and New Zealand, as well as in the countries that broke away such as the United States and India? What would the world be if Britain had not stood against militarism and fascism? And what would this world be if Britain had not settled the territory that Captain Cook earlier called New South Wales?

Long ago, Australians ceased to regard Britain as the mother country, but we are still family. The relationship between Britain and Australia has changed beyond recognition, but it is still important and we still matter to each other. Britain is by far our largest trading partner in Europe, which remains the world's largest economic bloc. Britain is the second-largest investor in Australia, the source of our largest migrant community and our oldest military ally. Britain is the world's sixth-largest economy, the fastest growing big economy in Europe and America's principal military partner.

Today we remember the 9,000 Australians who died at Gallipoli and we also remember our British brothers in arms who lost 21,000 in the same campaign. We remember the 15,000 Australians who passed into captivity at Singapore and we remember their 30,000 British comrades who were also taken prisoner. We remember the airmen in the skies over England and Europe from 1940 to 1945—that few to whom so many owed so much, including the tens of thousands of Australians who helped to win that battle for civilisation. Some of you are with us in the gallery today. Gentlemen, we honour your deeds and we honour your comrades who did not return.

History matters because it helps us to know who we are and where we are going. It helps us to know what is important and who can be relied upon. It shapes us, but it should never control us. Inscribed on the Australian War Memorial in London are Sir Robert Menzies' words from his time as a member of the British War Cabinet:

Whatever burden you are to carry, we also will shoulder that burden.

Today, Britain and Australia are working together to disrupt and degrade the ISIL death cult, which has declared war upon the world. In the Middle East and now with a new and different crisis in West Africa, Australia and Britain are asking not 'What's in it for us?' but 'How can we be helpful to people in trouble?' I can think of no two countries on earth readier to put into international practice the parable of the Good Samaritan.

We are like-minded in all the forums we share—the Commonwealth, the United Nations, and now the G20 and even NATO—on practical and decent solutions to all the problems facing the world. At home both Britain and Australia are committed to lower tax, less red tape, freer trade, bringing budgets under control and creating more private sector jobs.

I have to say that I admire what Prime Minister Cameron has achieved. He has cut the deficit by one-third. He has cut taxes for 26 million people. He is creating the best corporate tax system in Europe, and a further 1.7 million Britons are in work since 2010. Thanks to his leadership, Britain counts for more than it did five years ago.

Some time ago in this country, we had a largely sterile debate about Australia's place in the world, which John Howard settled with the famous declaration that we do not need to choose between our history and our geography. Of course Australia is located in the Indo-Pacific but our place is wherever there is an interest to advance, a citizen to protect, a value to uphold or a friend to encourage.

To a similar debate in Britain, Prime Minister Cameron has brought the same robust common sense. Britain is a European country with a global role. And like people, countries do not make new friends by losing old ones and they do not deepen some relationships by diminishing others.

Britain and Australia are both vibrant, multicultural democracies, determined to make the most of our advantages, of our shared history, of our different geography and, more important still, of our common characteristic curiosity and innate sense that, however much you have already done, there is always more that is yet to do.

After two centuries in which both of us have constantly adapted to our own changing and different circumstances, it is remarkable how similar we have become. Culturally, intellectually, even economically, it is now a relationship of peers.

In volume 1 of his memoirs, Clive James has described the gravitational pull of the country of his birth and the country of his choice. He writes:

As I begin this last paragraph … a misty afternoon drizzle … soaks the City of London. Down there in the street I can see umbrellas commiserating with each other. In Sydney Harbour, twelve thousand miles away and ten hours from now, the yachts will be racing on the crushed diamond water under a sky … of powdered sapphires. … Pulsing like a beacon through the days and nights, the birthplace of the fortunate sends out its invisible waves of recollection. It always has and it always will, until even the last of us come home.

We will always be conscious of the part that Britain has played in the life of our nation and of the friendship between our two countries that will never be taken for granted.

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