Anzac Day: Facing the tests of our time, we will honour our past

Dawn service on Anzac Day, the most sacred day in our nation’s calendar. Picture: Monique Harmer

In the still hours before dawn this morning, hundreds of thousands of Australians will awaken.

Most will rug up, some will gently shake their children to join them, and then quietly head on their way to nearby parks, war memorials, beaches and RSL clubs to attend a local dawn service.

Today is the most sacred day in our nation’s calendar. It is the day we are reminded that what we share as Australians is stronger than whatever divides us.

My friend and Liberal parliamentary colleague Major General (retired) Jim Molan has often said “it takes a nation to defend a nation”. That has always been the story of Australia.

Of course, military capability matters, equipment matters, and alliances and strategy matter. But, ultimately, what matters is a people with a fierce and protective love – for their home, family, community and country.

That’s what we honour and remember on today.

Since the first Australians landed on the shores of Gallipoli 107 years ago, nearly 103,000 Australians have given their lives in the service of our country. Hundreds of thousands more have made sacrifices that only they truly know.

Most Australians can tell you about a loved one who has served either in war or peace. Mine is no different. I think of my grandfather, Sandy. Alongside raising his family, serving during the Second World War was the proudest thing he ever did. But it wasn’t without its struggles and burdens. Long after he passed, my grandmother told me of the nightmares he had at night.

He and his generation, secured the safe and free world that we have enjoyed for three-quarters of a century. A mighty achievement.

The late Clive James said on an Anzac Day long ago that the memory of past sacrifice fades “precisely because we have got the world our parents dreamed of”.

Sadly, that world is changing before our eyes. War stalks Europe again, coercion troubles our own region once more, and an arc of autocracy from Beijing to Moscow is challenging the rules-based world order our grandparents’ generation fought to secure.

In facing this world, we must remember again.

In remembering, we see the character and values of Australians who have faced the worst and sacrificed the most. We see in them our Australian character and our timeless values. Their actions remind us what we stand for, what we believe in and, if need be, what we’ll defend.

We are a commonwealth with a shared future. We are a liberal democracy that believes in freedom of speech, association and a free press. We believe the powerful should not dominate the weak, and that all peoples have the right to live free of coercion, intimidation and the brute fist of force.

Above all, we believe in human dignity and the rights of all people to make choices for their own lives.

This is what has been defended by successive generations and this is what we honour and remember today.

Three-quarters of a century ago, a young air force aviator who later became our 19th prime minister spoke at an Anzac Day gathering. The young veteran said on that day, if the fallen could speak they would say: “We bought your freedom with our lives. So take this freedom. Guard it as we have guarded it, use it as we can no longer use it, and with it as a foundation, build. Build a world in which meanness and poverty, tyranny and hate, have no existence.”

“Do not fail them,” he said.

Sir John Gorton was right.

On this sacred day, the Australians of our generation facing the challenges of our times, pledge that we won’t.

Lest we forget.

Scott Morrison is the Prime Minister of Australia.