What Australia Day means to Scott Morrison, Dominic Perrottet and Anthony Albanese

The nation’s political leaders have spoken about what Australia Day means to them. Find out what they said.

Today is a day for every Australian.

Today is a day for every Australian.

It’s a day when we reflect, respect and celebrate.

We’ll gather together at breakfasts, BBQs, picnics, surf carnivals, and flag raisings and reflect on the country that we are and the people we have become.

Though there will be a light-heartedness in so many of our celebrations, we also understand, appreciate and honour the light and shade of our Australia story.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison. Picture: Sam Ruttyn

Our Australian story is one of strength and resilience that spans 65,000 years, of a continent that we love and contend with and for, and of a free and fair people who live in relative harmony.

We also reflect on what it means to be Australian during the extraordinary times that we live in.

While our journey has not been perfect, Australia is emerging from a once in a century pandemic with one of the lowest death rates in the world from COVID and with one of the strongest advanced economies in the world. Combined with one of the world’s highest vaccination rates, Australia is well set up to secure our recovery.

There’s more people in work, more apprentices in training, Australia’s credit rating is secure and businesses are investing in the future.

By working together, we are all delivering an extraordinary national achievement.

Through this time, there has also been a realisation of what is truly important - our family, our health, our jobs, our communities and our sovereignty as a free people.

There’s been a clarity as well with a renewed appreciation about what we can accomplish as a people.

Australians do have a quiet confidence. It’s a confidence to do what is right and a confidence in each other.

We are not a nation of doubters. We are a nation of doers.

Nor are we insecure or uncomfortable about who we are and our place in the world.

Especially on days like today, we aren’t ashamed to admit that we love our country and think it’s the best place in the world. That’s what I want our children to feel and believe as well.

That doesn’t mean we are perfect, nor do we pretend to be, but we know each other, and believe in each other - and that we can all make a difference

Australians are grateful, hardworking, generous, optimistic and outgoing.

I love the fact that while we are a people who work hard and are so passionate about what we do, we try not to take ourselves too seriously - we see that from the Wiggles’s Top 100 cover hit, to the thong throwing and sack races that will occur in so many places today.

Our Australia Day themes are to reflect, respect and celebrate. I believe it is this reflection that brings us together - it allows us to better understand and respect each other, as well as the progress we still need to make.

I am incredibly proud of Australia’s Indigenous heritage. We can learn so much from the wisdom and grace of Australia’s indigenous Peoples and I honour them on this day. We are on a journey together.

Yesterday, we took another small step by completing negotiations to secure the transfer of the Aboriginal Flag copyright to the Commonwealth. This means that the Aboriginal Flag is now freely available for public use and will be managed in a respectful and similar way to the Australian National Flag.

One of the rich parts of our national story is our multicultural character. We are the most successful multicultural nation on Earth - and today we affirm that heritage too. In over 400 locations, over 16,000 people, from more than 130 nations, will become Australian citizens, adding their own talents, strengths and hopes to our shared national fabric.

On this Australia Day, I feel a deep sense of gratitude.

Gratitude for a history that spans 65,000; a continent of unmatched beauty and wonder; a democratic tradition that is the foundation of our freedom; and the multicultural and multi-faith communities that add so much to our national life. Above all, I’m grateful for the Australian people, whose character, determination and heart inspire me every day.

We have much to be thankful for. Happy Australia Day!

NSW PREMIER DOMINIC PERROTTET

There is something special about Australia, something that’s hard to express in words. And it is on Australia Day that I have always felt it most, ever since I was a kid.

Our nation has a kind of magnetic attraction. Our nation has a kind of magnetic attraction. It reaches right around the world, and it’s why Australia is among the world’s top ten destinations for immigrants, and around 3 in 10 Australians were born overseas - the second highest proportion in the OECD.

NSW Premier Dominic Perrottet. Picture: Justin Lloyd.

That’s not an accident. New Australians know the quality of life you can have here, and provide for your family, is among the best in the world - maybe the best.

Many Australians are lucky enough to receive this gift purely by being born here, and it can be easy to take it for granted. So Australia Day for me is an opportunity to really try to appreciate all that’s great about our nation. The freedom, the opportunity, the resilience and optimism of our people.

This year it’s even more significant, because the pandemic has forced us to sacrifice so much. And again, while there have been many challenges and many hardships, if you take a step back, on so many measures Australia has stood incredibly tall.

A lot of that comes down to the effort our people have made, because the spirit of egalitarianism is alive and well here - that sense of solidarity, of doing the right thing for greater good, even if it hurts.

In giving up some of our freedoms, we all appreciate our nation’s defining virtues and values all the more. We can better understand that they are precious and fragile; that we must preserve and pass them to future generations as they were passed on to us.

So too do we recognise our obligation to make them more universally shared, and it is unacceptable that for so many of Australia’s First Nations people, the best our nation has to offer is not within reach. Until we can reconcile our future with our past, our nation’s soul cannot rest easy.

I am determined that in my lifetime we can take great strides forward to rectify this injustice, to ensure every Indigenous Australian enjoys opportunity and prosperity to the fullest extent, and for First Nations culture to occupy its rightful place in our nation’s identity.

Last week I was at the Australia Day Address, where KARI performed our national anthem, first in the Eora language, then in English. It gave me goosebumps, and it really struck me that there are so many opportunities for First Nations culture to permeate Australian life in ways that strengthen our nation and unite all Australians.

Because unity is the key to a stronger future. We are three strands - First Nations, British and migrant - entangled in history, bound up in a common destiny. In our story you will find good and bad, ugliness and beauty, pain and promise. It’s a very human story.

But you will also find a nation whose success to date defies all the odds, and that is an achievement of which we can be proud.

If we face our future truly united, our best days will be ahead of us: this motley crew of all-comers, working together against the grain to create something even more extraordinary.

LABOR LEADER ANTHONY ALBANESE

Australia’s best days are ahead of us.

Not just the better days that we’re all hoping for right now, but the best our nation has ever seen.

Together, we are ready for it.

Australia Day is a good moment for us to reflect; to consider our blessings as a nation and to celebrate them. Perhaps that is more important now than it has been for decades.

We have been through a time so challenging, none of us will ever forget it.

Leader of the Australian Labor Party Anthony Albanese. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Martin Ollman

I know, as we enter the third year of the pandemic, a lot of Australians are exhausted. Worn down by bad news, uncertainty, inconvenience, disruption and separation from loved ones.

And we look forward to the day when we can put all this behind us.

If we get this moment right, Australia can emerge from this once-in-a-century crisis better, stronger, more fair, and more prosperous.

My case for government is that we must learn the lessons of this pandemic in order to build a more resilient Australia for the future.

What stands before us now is the opportunity to build on the best qualities that characterise Australians, and to realise our potential as a people and a nation more fully than at any time in our history.

The chance is ours to seize.

But it requires courage.

It requires vision.

It requires leadership that brings Australians together.

Just ‘pushing through’ this pandemic is not enough. We need to learn from it, we need to use what the last two years have taught us to build a better future.

Paul Keating once said the lesson of the First World War was a lesson about ordinary people – and the lesson was they were not ordinary.

We’ve had that same truth brought home to us these past two years.

I say it every chance I get – the Australian people have been magnificent during this crisis.

Calm in the midst of turmoil, looking out for each other in tough times.

Those values are worth reflecting upon on Australia Day.

I want a better future.

An Australia with rising living standards, lifted by more secure work, better wages, better conditions for small business, stronger Medicare, and more affordable childcare.

An Australia with more secure jobs in both existing and new industries – industries that will be reaping the benefits of cheap, renewable energy.

An Australia that is secure in our place in the world, standing up for Australian democratic values and for human rights on the global stage.

An Australia with robust funding for the Australian Defence Force, which rebuilds our diplomatic service, revitalizes our international aid program, and works closely with our American ally and regional partners in the challenges and uncertainties that lie ahead.

An inclusive society, where gender, race or religion are no indication of a person’s opportunities or possibilities.

An Australia reconciled with ourselves and with our history, and with a constitutionally recognised First Nations’ Voice to Parliament.

This crisis has shown us we are stronger together.

But that truth is older and runs deeper than this pandemic.

Tom Uren was the closest person in my life I had to a father figure.

He fought in World War 2. He spent most of it as a prisoner of war.

And he always said his fellow Australian prisoners survived because of a simple code:

The healthy looked after the sick, the strong looked after the weak, the young looked after the old.

To me, that’s always been the best of Australia.

Anthony Albanese is the Leader of the Australian Labor Party. This is an edited version of his Australia Day speech, delivered at the National Press Club

Originally published as What Australia Day means to Scott Morrison, Dominic Perrottet and Anthony Albanese