Richard Marles (Corio, Australian Labor Party, Deputy Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Hansard source

Prince Philip had a deep connection with Australia. It began at the age of 18 in 1940, when, as a midshipman aboard HMS Ramillies, he helped escort Australian troops across the Indian Ocean to Egypt. In many ways, this first engagement with Australia came to characterise Prince Philip's life, because, as a decorated naval officer and as consort to the British monarch, Prince Philip's was a life of astonishing service.

He visited Australia on more than 20 occasions. So it was no surprise that, when the Queen and Prince Philip decided that at least part of Prince Charles's education should occur in another country of the Commonwealth, they chose Australia—more specifically, the Timbertop campus of Geelong Grammar School. The outdoor education of Timbertop was inspired by the educational philosophies of Kurt Hahn, a Jewish refugee from Nazi Germany, who, in 1934, founded the Gordonstoun school in Scotland, which was Prince Philip's own alma mater. It was a school to which he was devoted throughout his life. It was where his three sons did the bulk of their education and where Princess Anne sent her own children and served on the board of governors. As a boy at the school, Prince Philip was the guardian of Gordonstoun, the school captain.

When you look at the philosophies of Kurt Hahn, they speak to the essence of Prince Philip. Hahn believed that an education should give a child the experience of self-discovery, that it should enable a child the opportunity to meet triumph and defeat. Right there, you've got the Duke of Edinburgh's Award, which Prince Philip established with Kurt Hahn in 1956 to provide young people with the opportunity to have new experiences through physical and community challenges. Since then, millions of people around the world, from 90 countries, have gained the benefit of participation in the Duke of Edinburgh's Award program. Hahn also believed that an education should give a child the opportunity of self-effacement in the face of a greater cause—in other words, that it should instil a spirit of service towards others. Instilling that spirit remains part of the educational tenets of Gordonstoun to this day.

Prince Philip served in the name of science, he served in the name of the environment and he served thousands of organisations throughout his life and, through them, millions of people in the Commonwealth and Great Britain. But, most especially, he served his wife and his sovereign, Queen Elizabeth, as the longest serving consort to a reigning British monarch, over an astonishing period of 69 years. Think about it: here was a man who was larger than life and charismatic and who, by instinct, probably would have imagined himself to be the one out front but who willingly made a decision to be the one behind and to make his life about providing support to another. Of course, that's a decision that millions of people make—to provide support to a husband or a wife, or to give loyal and faithful service to a leader at work—but Prince Philip's example reminds us that those who give that support are just as important as the ones who are out front, and that, in making that decision, there is in it a profound nobility and that, just occasionally, it is that person who gets recognition of the highest order.

After his visit in 1971, the people of the dramatically beautiful volcanic island of Tanna, in southern Vanuatu, came to literally worship Prince Philip as a living god. Whatever his status, Prince Philip leaves this world much loved, as the reaction around Australia to his passing has shown. His life is acknowledged here today by a deeply grateful nation.

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