Anzac Day 2020: Prime Minister Scott Morrison pays tribute at Australian War Memorial
Scott Morrison has reminded all Australians the Anzacs have passed on a torch to be carried into the future | WATCH
Scott Morrison has reminded all Australians the Anzacs have passed on a torch to be carried into the future.
The prime minister drew on the words of his wartime predecessor John Curtin as he gave the address to a crowd-free commemorative service — held inside the Australian War Memorial in Canberra in line with coronavirus restrictions.
“Here in Canberra, on this day, 75 years ago and the midst of war, our then Prime Minister John Curtin, called for every citizen to give equal measure of devotion, what our servicemen and women give every day.,” Mr Morrison said.
“He reminded Australia that the original Anzacs handed on a torch, clenched and carried high, and that is passed on to every generation of Australians. This Anzac Day, it’s been passed to us. And so together, with faith in each other, and guided by the lives and examples of those who’ve gone before, we grasp that torch and we raise it high again lighting up the Anzac dawn. Lest we forget.”
READ THE PM’S FULL REMARKS HERE.
Mr Morrison delivered his speech alongside the roll of honour, which marks the names of 102,000 men and women who have died in service.
“Through these 102,000 men and women, and the millions more who’ve worn our nation’s uniform, we come to understand what love of family, community and country truly means,” Mr Morrison said.
He also paid tribute to his grandfather Gunner Leslie John (Sandy) Smith, who served Australia in Sir Roden Cutler VC’s 2nd 5th Field Regiment as part of the AIF’s 7th Division in WWII.
One of those whose family member is named on the honour roll is retired Wing Commander and service nurse, Sharon Bown, whose great-uncle Private Albert Arthur Reader landed at Gallipoli 105 years ago.
She told the service all Australians had the opportunity to cast themselves in the image of those who served.
“Let us do more than just honour those who have defended Australia,” she said. “In this time of crisis, let us realise the innate capacity within each of us … to unite and to protect the more vulnerable among us.
“To realise that the qualities for which we honour the Anzacs live on in each of us — endurance, courage, ingenuity, good humour, mateship and devotion, to duty to each other, to Australia.”
The 16-year veteran is no stranger to tragedy and danger — Ms Bown barely survived a helicopter crash, commanded a combat surgical team during some of the most intense fighting in Afghanistan, lost her mother to breast cancer and almost lost her policeman father to a homicidal psychopath.
Prime Minister Scott Morrison paid tribute to another nurse, Carolyn Griffiths, who joined the Reserves after the 2002 Bali bombings and served in Afghanistan and Iraq.
“Today, Squadron Leader Griffiths continues to serve as a reservist and as an ICU nurse at the Princess Alexandra Hospital in Brisbane where she works with one of her two daughters. The other daughter is a nurse at the Royal.” He noted having spoken a few days ago with Afghanistan veteran and Corporal Matt Williams, a brain cancer survivor and campaigner.
“Willie is in isolation today because his immune system depends on all of us keeping our distance,” Mr Morrison said.
“He has served us, but now we must do the right thing by him and so many more because we are all in this together. But we always have been and we always will be.” Amid the quietness of the war memorial, Mr Morrison reflected on a 1919 gathering in Gallipoli.
“A small group of Anzacs who’d been arranging and tending the graves of their mates gathered and there was no pomp at that little service, there were no dignitaries, no band, just the sound of lapping water on the lonely shore,” he said.
“One said of that little service, ‘It was the real thing’.
“And so our remembrances today, small, quiet and homely will be.”
A didgeridoo sounded the beginning of the national commemorative service. Marches have been cancelled for only the third time — the last time in 1942 and previously during the devastating Spanish flu outbreak.
Following The Ode, The Last Post, a minute’s silence and Reveille, Australians were encouraged to stand in their driveways at 6am with a candle or torch to light up the dawn.
Many, such as Queensland girl Mikaela Gonzalez, plan to play instruments such as bugles and trumpets.
Mr Morrison, Governor-General David Hurley, New Zealand High Commissioner Dame Annette King and Opposition Leader Anthony Albanese were among the dignitaries to lay wreaths.
AAP
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