Official Australia Day Flag Raising Ceremony

I begin by acknowledging the Traditional Owners of the lands on which this House stands – the Wurundjeri and Bunurong people of the Eastern Kulin Nation – and pay my respects to their Elders, past and present.

I acknowledge Elders with us today.

And I welcome everyone to the official Australia Day flag-raising ceremony in Melbourne, Victoria.

This is a day when we come together to celebrate.

We celebrate Australia being brought into being as a nation, peacefully and democratically.

We raise our national flag, now alongside those of our First Peoples, even though we are not celebrating on the actual day, 1st of January, of our constitutional beginning 125 years ago.

It is a moment to be remembered and celebrated.

Yet we meet this year in, in the words of Alfred Deakin, in “the times that try… [our] …souls.”

He said:

“Let us recognise that we live in an unstable era, and that, if we fail in the hour of crisis, we may never be able to recall our lost national opportunities.”

Born in Fitzroy, Melbourne, in the 1850s, Deakin spoke those words before he became Australia’s first Attorney General and then second Prime Minister.

He spoke them in 1898 in Bendigo as he was advocating for the creation of this nation, Australia.

The instability, the crisis, the lost opportunities, of which Deakin was warning so long ago, were his call to the people of Victoria – urging them of the need to unite and act to create this federation, this commonwealth, this nation, Australia.

Today – in these days – our trying times are different.

Caused by the real perils of climate change in a landscape that has been burning hopes and endangering our communities, particularly those living closest to the Australian bush that otherwise feeds our souls.

Times when conflicts and wars in other nations and places, fuelled by deep-seated antagonisms, and deeply felt injuries and injustices, spill into sectarian strife, intolerance, discrimination and hatred on our shores.

It will be our lost national opportunity if we allow these times to divide us, to cause us to act in ways that undermine what we built for ourselves – the peaceful democracy which this day should celebrate.

We all know that no society or nation is perfect, nor are our impulses in trying times always well-judged or well-founded.

We celebrate today, not because every national action in our history, when judged with hindsight and in greater appreciation of intended and unintended consequences, was right.

We celebrate because our aims in 1901 – to create a democracy with fairness and justice that protects us from arbitrary action by public or private bodies;

…that gives equal rights to all citizens, supported by free discussion that does not suppress opinions and analysis; and…

…to bring into being a commonwealth that supports the health, education and wellbeing of its citizens and communities –

…these are aims worthy of celebration and conservation, as well as ongoing conversation.

In trying times, our national opportunity is to look to what should unite us, and the actions of which we have reason to be proud.

Let us reflect that, in these last months:

In hellish bushfires, which have come and will come again, we have reason to be proud of;

The preparations to defend people, communities and our precious land, its fauna and flora,

The stoicism and generosity of our volunteers working in teams to protect life and limb,

The many helping hands when disaster strikes,

In the face of violence, people stepped into the gunfire in Bondi,

…stepped up to defend those attacked here, pushed back on hate and intimidation,

…spoke up to be sure others have voice, but not voices for hate.

Embodying the values captured by one of our poets, Adam Lindsay Gordon:

“Kindness in another’s trouble, Courage in our own.”

We have seen those among us act and speak out for others.

They have spoken for them to be acknowledged and understood as people – as us – not them.

All the people – people who have been here in this land for longer than we can imagine, people who have come to us from all the lands on earth – people who should all enjoy that peaceful democracy we have sought for ourselves.

In these times we have clear reasons to unite and be proud.

Yet we need to reflect on all the actions that have been taken in these trying times.

Unfortunately, the readiness to seek out someone or some group to blame for misfortune and hardship is too common an impulse.

Writ large across our community, it turns us away from the good of taking action to alleviate hardship and misfortune, to make us part of the cruelty that insists that someone or some group is the author of all our ills.

When these sentiments are turned into a campaign for scapegoats, we allow ourselves to substitute punishment and persecution for understanding what needs to be done to improve the future.

This impulse to blame divides us, so too does it turn us from actions that express the strength and kindness of our communities.

It diminishes our nation, and the many we should support and of whom we can be proud.

On Australia Day, we should celebrate the aims of our commonwealth by holding tight to what is needed to preserve and advance them.

We should rejoice in the courage and kindness we have seen demonstrated around us during these trying times.

We should ponder, as Deakin once urged, what might be the national opportunity lost if we fail in these moments of crisis.

On this day we should consider the actions that have and will bring us together – for that is our national opportunity.