Anzac Day 2025: Uniform response ‘against the erosion of time’, as nation honours its debt
It was sunny in the west, chilly in the national capital. Hot and steamy up there in Townsville, overcast in Sydney. The beauty of Anzac Day is that none of this mattered.
It was sunny in the west, chilly in the national capital. Hot and steamy up there in Townsville, overcast in Sydney.
The beauty of Anzac Day is that none of this mattered: it’s when people come together to remember, in different ways, in the myriad places that make up a kaleidoscopic continent, those who gave their all for Australia.
Quite properly, the fury of the federal election campaign took a back seat to the commemorative ceremonies and marches that attracted big crowds coast to coast.
Attending the Dawn Service in Canberra, Anthony Albanese paid tribute to the sacrifices Australians had made in times of war.
“We contemplate the debt we owe them – those who finally came home, their hearts reshaped by all they had seen, and those who tragically never did,” the Prime Minister said. “Anzac Day asks us to stand against the erosion of time. So each year, we renew our vow to keep the flame of memory burning so brightly that its glow touches the next generation and the generation after that.”
Peter Dutton was also up before the sun, but did not speak at the rainy Dawn Service in his outer Brisbane electorate of Dickson. In a video message, the Opposition Leader marked the impending 80th anniversary of the end of World War II by lauding that great generation of Australians who defended the homeland.
“They experienced the horror of war to defeat tyranny and restore peace,” he said. “As the custodians of that peace, it’s our duty to deter tyranny and prevent catastrophic war. In that duty, may we never waver in effort, energy and endeavour.”
The World War II veterans, waning in number but never in spirit, were star turns wherever they appeared. Fewer than 1300 of the 900,000 Australians who served in that conflict remain.
But you wouldn’t have known Kokoka Track veteran Colin Moir was 102 by the way he twirled his cane at the head of the march in Sydney. His eyes twinkling, the proud old soldier walked the length of the route unaided.
Anti-aircraft gunner Valerie Ireland received a bullet wound to the head – and survived. “I went through a lot of agonising moments and finally came out the other end,” she said.
RAAF radar operator John McAuley, 100, who deployed to New Guinea, was equally determined to make it to the end under his own steam. This was for the mates he had lost over the years, he said.
“It’s about remembering our comrades … we met in war and we grew up together and we had an experience. We were mentally demobilised back into our former lives and our careers and our families, (but) were still together.”
In Brisbane, David Brennan, 88, said Anzac Day was about recognising both the hardships and successes that came the way of veterans. He knows a thing or two about doing it tough.
As a 16-year-old leading seaman, Mr Brennan was exposed to the atomic testing conducted for the British on the Montebello Islands off Western Australia in 1953. He would go on to contract bowel and skin cancer. “I went close to the last detonations,” he said. “In fact, it was too close. But I got through all right.”
`Elvie Marcus, 99, is looking forward to joining the centenarian club. She enlisted in the Australian Army Medical Women’s Service at 18 and is delighted that Anzac Day attendance continues to grow. It was no accident.
“Over the years, more people have been coming and realising all the difficulties that are out there in the world now,” she said, with two granddaughters at her side in Brisbane. “We have to be very vigilant about the future.”
On Bribie Island, north of the Queensland capital, 95-year-old Colin Baxter recalled how he had been called up when he was 17 and sent to Japan as a radar plotter in the aftermath of the atomic strikes that ended World War II. Part of his job was to locate and secure Japanese military equipment and ordnance. “(There were) 168 of us that went to Yokohama that did not return,” he said. Reverend Baxter went on to serve as a military chaplain.
Kangaroo Island hosted a packed Dawn Service where Vietnam War veteran David Mancer reflected on the heavy price paid by his battalion – three dead, others seriously injured.
“Obviously, there’s a lot that carry a few scars out of that … (but) I have been so lucky and blessed,” he said.
The names of 70 of the fallen from Australia’s red centre were recited in an honour roll at the Alice Springs ceremony. The commander of the Regional Force Surveillance Group, the army’s famed Norforce, Steven Dickie, said more than 110,000 Australians had died in combat.
“It seems to me that simple, yet meaningful, gatherings such as ours this morning are growing ever in importance,” Colonel Dickie said.
“Today is not about crowd numbers, a memorable selfie or a game of footy, but about Australians coming together to pause and reflect on true sacrifice, true heroism and what, at least in part, it means to be an Australian.”
In Gallipoli, Princess Anne said the volunteer soldiers from Australia and New Zealand who took part in the 1915 landings could not have imagined how important Anzac Day would become.
“Their words have helped us understand its importance, and not least to the families left behind,” the Princess Royal said. “110 years later, we stand here at dawn to commemorate the Anzacs, remembering their bravery, courage and sacrifice.”
Speaking just after first light there, Governor-General Sam Mostyn said the legacy of the landings was a “constant call not to arms, but to peace”.
She recounted an experience she had the previous day at Anzac Cove, paddling in the sea at dawn. “As the first light arrived, as hard as we tried, it was impossible for us to put ourselves in the boots of those soldiers,” she said.
“We experienced the peace of the gentle lapping of the shore and the beautiful birdsong we hear right now. Where we found peace, they encountered the fury of the maelstrom of bullets and shrapnel, the fury of it all.”
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