Anzac Day 2024 National Address

The Governor-General’s Anzac Day National Address was broadcast on the ABC at 6:55 pm AEST on 25 April.

On Anzac Day, we acknowledge those who have chosen to serve in our name and follow in the steps of our Anzac forebears.

We acknowledge that they and their families disproportionally bear the cost of maintaining our freedoms and way of life. 

We honour them and give thanks.

We remember and reflect.

A beloved friend of Linda and mine passed away in 2008. Alec Hill was my military history lecturer at Duntroon. He was a veteran of the Second World War. A Rat of Tobruk, Alec also fought at El Alamein and later in the Pacific. He knew combat and he knew Australian soldiers. I went to him for advice on many occasions.

Before my first visit to Gallipoli, I asked Alec how I should approach the visit. His advice was quite simple: go stand in the water at Anzac Cove and look up.

I took Alec’s advice and, as I looked up, I tried to put myself in the shoes of the Anzacs. Rising from the gloom were heights that appeared unscalable – no obvious tracks, numerous false crests and an uncertain summit. ‘How to go forward?’ must have been the question on every mind.

That morning’s experience has returned to me many times during the past five years. I consider it a metaphor for the difficult experiences we have shared as a country — drought, devastating bushfires, a pandemic, cyclones, and vast flooding. ‘How to go forward?’ has been the question asked by so many people and communities when they stared at the challenges ahead of them.

What has brought me comfort and given me optimism for Australia has been their response. A response that I believe draws from the Anzac experience, the Anzac legacy as we often call it.

Give us a job to do and we will give it our best.

While we are doing the job we will do it in a way that makes you proud.

While we are doing the job we will look after our mates and continue to look after them when the job is done.

It is a legacy that we aspire to embody; a legacy that we at times fail to meet. Yet it is a legacy that we remain determined to try to fulfil. It has helped define our national character.

I know that members of the ADF hold to this legacy dearly. ‘To not let the Anzacs down’ was a common motivator for my soldiers in my battalion when we deployed to Somalia. 

This being my last Anzac address as Governor-General and Commander-in-Chief, I want to assure our serving personnel that we respect their service. They should be proud of the uniform they wear. They are rightful inheritors and protectors of the Anzac legacy. We are proud of them.

Today is special for another reason. It is the centenary of the first Anzac service conducted in Australia in the format we know today.

Canon David Garland, an Anglican priest, had witnessed the Anzacs at war in Western Europe. He understood the legacy that they were creating and tried to capture it at that first service at Toowong Cemetery in Brisbane. Poignantly, that service ended with the familiar words ‘Lest we forget.’

Lest we forget Canon Garland and his inspired vision for remembrance that honours the loved ones we have lost.

Lest we forget our nation’s modern roots and how they can help us as a country today.

Lest we forget the sacrifice and pain of so many in uniform and at home in our country’s history.

Lest we forget.

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