Jonty Bush: 'She was stabbed to death by her boyfriend' , Young Australian of the Year - 2009

26 January 2013, Adelaide, South Australia, Australia

Good afternoon.

Well, thank you for having me. I'd like to start by acknowledging the traditional owners of the land on which we meet, both past and present and respectfully thank them and yourselves for the opportunity to stand here today and to share with you part of my story, and my personal and very humble thoughts on what makes Australia remarkable.

Particularly, given I understand that Lance Armstrong today is, is running the whole confession. So, you know, quite an appealing thing to stay home and watch that Oprah run through. So thank you for coming out and making the effort.

So what does make Australia remarkable? It's a question I've been asked many times since receiving the Young Australian of the year award in 2009, and a question which is highly subjective, depending on who you ask. So yesterday morning, I did probably what every one in my generation does, and I popped the question onto Facebook, 'What makes Australia so great', and predictably there was a varied response. I dunno if everyone can read that but —.

[lists virtues] positive sunny people, the coffee, the beaches, the fact that AFL would always be on the front page of the paper even if world war III was breaking out ... how we're surrounded by an ocean patrolled by the deadliest sharks in the world, sense of community is something that really shone through for people, they really related to that sense of community that Australia seems to have, safety growing up in a community, swimming, water slides, water sprinklers, you know, people really reflected on their own childhoods a lot. What else have we got in there? healthcare system, obviously someone's over in London and a bit dirty at the healthcare system at the moment, the people, the passion and the environment, and then David, the fact that it's not America.

What becomes apparent from this is that people I think are essentially meaning making species and will identify with the Australian traits and the mannerisms which means something to us. We go about our lives witnessing events and actions, forming connections and conflicts with others. And the meaning that we attach to those events begins to form a picture or a story, If you like, around who we are as individuals and how we connect in the world.

I'd like to illustrate this to you by sharing parts of my personal story. Not only to showcase one of the 20 million lives that makes up the tapestry of Australia, but to highlight how our own personal experiences influence what it is that we notice in the world around us.

On the 30th of July in the year 2000, I received a phone call informing me that my 19 year old sister had been in an accident. She'd been out the night before with her live-in boyfriend of just three months. And as far as I knew, she'd been safely tucked away in a hotel room, sleeping off a big night. Within the hours that followed. I learned that my sister had been murdered, she was stabbed to death by her boyfriend, the man who professed to love her. This was my first real taste of violence. My first experience of losing someone that close to me and as I'm sure it's obvious to you, but wasn't so obvious to me at the time, was an incredible turning point in my life. What I didn't see at that time was this one event significant enough in its own right, would mark one of the turning points in my life, and would take me on a journey of both great isolation as I alone discovered who I was and what I valued, but also togetherness as I've walked with others that would teach me about humanity, strength, and optimism. These are the traits that I both remember and loved most about Australia and the people who populate it — humanity, strength and optimism.

Just four months following the death of my sister, my father was assaulted. He was punched twice in the face, collapsed at the scene and was rushed to hospital where he was diagnosed with a subarachnoid haemorrhage, or bleeding in the brain. Now 2012 was an extraordinary year. In many regards, two events stand out for me in particular. One is that we reached our highest heights with Felix Baumgartner skydiving from an astonishing 24 miles above the Earth. And we also explored the depths of our ocean, with James Cameron being the first man to reach the Marianna trench, over 35,000 feet deep and a figure unattainable anywhere else in the ocean.

This day, nearly 13 years, since the death of my father, I still stand in wonderment of how we can and take our people to the edges of space and the depth of the oceans, and yet the mechanics of the human brain and in particular, how to heal it largely remain a mystery to us. On the 18th of November, 2000, just four months after my sister's death, my father's life support was turned off and he passed away as a result of his injuries. He was 49 years old, a father of three, his youngest being my brother who was just 13 years of age and a recent grandfather of an 18 month old.

I've always maintained that you never finish a book on a bad chapter, and the same can be said for our lives. You might tend to have complete control over the events in your life, but you are ultimately the author and narrator of your own story. We all choose where it goes next. For me, I wanted to write myself as the heroine of my story, not the victim. I wanted my life to tell a story of a young woman who experienced tragedy and yet rose above that to create the best life that she could, in a nation where opportunities are endless and where you go next is limited only by your own imagination.

Leaving a solid career in human resources. I journeyed into the victim support and advocacy area. Over the next decade, I worked with literally thousands of families who were bereaved through homicide. Many people I speak with outside of this field expressed to me how depressing this must be and how hopeless. To be honest, it's been anything but. There's nothing more inspiring than seeing another person standing strong in the face of adversity.

I've supported a man whose only two grandchildren were murdered, as at 80 years of age, he started a fundraising group in his local town of Emerald in Queensland, and every Friday night worked the pubs and clubs raising thousands of dollars to support children's causes. I've stood by the side of a mother of a murdered son, as the offender approached her to offer a teary apology. The strength that must have taken for him to make those dozen steps across the courtroom floor and to ask for her forgiveness is something that many of us can only imagine. And the courage that it took on her part to hug him and to say, I forgive you, formed a memory that made a lasting impression on me. As I decided that day, that if she could forgive that act, then there was nothing I couldn't work through.

Our nation's history and present are peppered by stories, just like these. Australia breeds resilience. On the one hand we're a nation with incredible gifts. We're a wealthy nation. In fact, one of the wealthiest nations in the history of the world. We're blessed with growth and opportunity and we are fortunate enough to have leaders in this country who convert these gifts into prosperity for many. But we're also presented with challenges. No one could forget days in our nation's history, such as the black Saturday bushfres in 2009. Over 300 fires burned through Victoria's heartland, affecting 78 communities and taking the lives of 173 people. Or the 2011 Queensland floods, affecting 70 communities and over 200,000 people. Thirty five lives were lost, and three quarters of the state was declared a disaster zone. These events, as catastrophic and devastating as they are, bring out something in the Australian people. Where other nations loot, panic and take advantage of the population's vulnerable, Australians are arguably at our most admirable in the face of adversity. The Red Cross Victorian Bushfire appeal received an unprecedented $378 million in donations, which is around about the equivalent of every Australian donating $20. it was the largest single charitable appeal in Australian history. Whilst more than 55,000 volunteers registered to clean up Brisbane alone during the 2011 floods with thousands more simply turning up, compromising their health and safety to help a stranger in need. It's no wonder with feats like these, that Australia consistently ranks as the world's number one nation on the World Giving Index.

I love that Australians don't take ourselves too seriously, that we believe in second chances, particularly when there's sports involved, and that we celebrate and aspire to be people of substance, rather than those of fleeting fame. (For those that dunno, that's the Kardashians.).

I love that we're encouraged to challenge the status quo, that we recognise that amazing things happen on the fringes. In 2007, I was honoured to become the first victim and youngest person to be the CEO of the Queensland homicide victim support group. One of the areas I wanted to tackle was society's attitudes around violence. At the time I and others were frustrated by the lack of voice and discussion given to the topic and what we could do to address it. For example, people being encouraged by our local city council, to ring up and dub in your neighbours if they breached their water restrictions, yes, you could have someone king hit from behind in Brisbane's entertainment, precinct, and not one witness would come forward. Further to that. I was concerned that this apathy towards violence was reflected in our criminal justice system in many ways, but notably through the 'accident excuse'.

The 'accident excuse' forms an integral part of Queensland's criminal code. In fact, it's in many criminal codes throughout Australia, and holds that a person cannot be criminally responsible for an event which occurs by accident. Critically. It asks jurors to consider whether the outcome from an act of violence, was reasonably foreseeable to the ordinary man. I first encountered this section of the legislation in 2002, during my father's manslaughter trial. The jury presiding in our case were asked how foreseeable was it that the two punches dealt to my father would result in a fatal outcome. On medication, and to my surprise, the jury reached a consensus that it was not foreseeable, that two punches could result in death and they delivered a verdict of not guilty with the offender walking free from court. I then encountered the accident section of the law soon after becoming CEO of the homicide group, where during the first 12 months, two cases, which proceeded through court were found to be not guilty because of the accident,excuse. Both cases involved seemingly minimal acts of violence, one or two punches, and in both cases juries determined that death was not a foreseeable outcome to the ordinary man.

These outcomes clearly had a devastating impact upon the surviving family. Imagine for a moment, not only losing someone you love suddenly and through violence, but then being asked to accept that even though the offender committed a criminal act when they assaulted the victim, because they didn't intend to cause death, and because to the ordinary person death isn't foreseeable, that offender now walks free from court.

It was this sense of injustice that led myself and others to do two things. The first thing was the lobby government to review and change the legislation surrounding the accident excuse. The second was to start an education campaign targeting our young people particularly, reminding them about the consequences of just one punch.

The One Punch Can Kill campaign was our solution to that social problem and has since been supported by the Queensland government. I know it's saved lives. I've had young people approach me to say how they place One Punch wristbands on their hands to stop them fighting with their peers. And it's also led to a national discussion around violence, its consequences, and what we can do to challenge the Australian norms, which support it.

Since embarking on this advocacy path, I've challenged politicians, spoken openly in the media against judges' decisions and implored people to raise our expectations of lawmakers. I've had incredible media support and, largely, community goodwill towards the campaign. In other countries throughout the world, I would've been lucky to make a headline. Whilst in some countries, as a woman protesting or challenging the laws, I would've been shot.

Late last year, I started a new project called Project 24, which aims to unite Australian women towards greater safety outcomes for other women, both nationally and globally. In just a few short months we've raised a considerable sum for our first project, a domestic violence shelter in the Solomon Islands.

And it was another great reminder of two things.

One is the beauty and the necessity of freedom. Australian nationals are born into it. We inherit it for no reason other than we were the lucky ones who happened to have Australian parents. And I reluctantly admit that many of us probably take it for granted. Whilst researching for Project 24, I was gutted by some of the stories I read, where women side of Australia were victimised often purely because they were women. I read of children under 10 years of age being sold as child brides, and of a woman who was gang raped only to be told by a judge that she was too old and ugly to be sexually assaulted. For these women, freedom is an aspirational concept, something to be desired, but never achieved. One of the greatest things I love about Australia is the freedom to be a woman, to be a young person, to speak my mind, to create waves and to create change without fear.

The second reminder I've had whilst working on Project 24 and the final point of my conversation with you is the impact that one person can make in the world. I grew up in a working class suburb in Tasmania, where most of my peers didn't graduate beyond year 10. Teenage pregnancy was the norm and unemployment was high. Despite two loving and hardworking parents, I spent my early years conditioned to believe that this was the future I had to look forward to. I've spent my adult life since challenging that deep-seated belief, expecting more of myself and believing that anyone no matter their origins can create a life they're proud of.

I love that in Australia, a small town Tasmanian girl who left home at 16 years of age and failed year 12, isn't typecast as a failure. That she could go on to complete a bachelor degree. And most recently her masters. That she can become the CEO of an organisation, that she can lobby and change the law, and change the way others view victims of crime. That one day she'd be recognised nationally for this and end up travelling Australia, speaking with communities about violence, whose opinions are published through the media, develops a career as a presenter and speaker, and most recently had dinner with Prince Charles and Camilla! That's me.

You can't really see it, but it is me!

Only in Australia. It's on this note, I'd like to sincerely thank the Australia Cay Council, its sponsors and supporters, for recognising the work of this small town Tasmanian girl, amidst the amazing work that's brought to your attention each and every year. I spoke earlier of meaning. You've given my life a whole new dimension of meaning, and I'm forever grateful that you saw and believed in me. So to the council supporters and sponsors, thank you very much.

I'd also just like to throw in a shameless plug for women. We are still always looking for women to join Project 24, to help us in our fundraising efforts to improve the safety and quality of life for women globally. So if there's women out there that would be interested in joining a good team, that's how you can get in touch with me. And if anyone wants to contact me directly, it's my details. So on that note, I'd like to thank everyone for listening. I hope it encourages you to consider the meaning that you attached to being Australian and have an awesome lunch.

Thanks very much.

Dan Hannan: 'It’s not just the financial price of EU membership – it’s the democratic price', Spectator Brexit debate - 2016

25 April 2016, London Palladium, London, Uk

This is a summary of remarks rather than a transcript

Tonight, I’m inviting you to make me redundant – and, into the bargain, make Nigel redundant. And I wouldn’t be doing if I were not confident that there will be plenty of openings for newly-unemployed MEPs in the boom that would follow our exit from the European Union. Why do we tie ourselves to the one part of the world that is not experiencing significant economic growth? The eurozone, incredibly, was the same size at the end of last year as it was in 2006. Every continent on this planet has grown over the past decade except Antartica and the European Union. We are a trading people. We dont sit on great natural resources here, we have to make our way by what we by and sell, that means we have to be where the customers are. And that means as long as we’re in the European Union, we cannot sign independent trade deals with non-EU countries.

The EU deal with Australia is being held up because some Italian tomato-growers are challenging it. The EU deal with Canada is being held up due to an unrelated dispute about Romanian visa. How have we put ourselves in a position where we can’t do those deals? Liz Kendall quotes some Davos men telling us that we can’t leave because we’d be worse off – but wages would rise, prices would fall. If we stay in, neither will happen.

It’s not just the financial price of EU membership – it’s the democratic price. We fought a civil war in this country to establish the principle that laws should not be passed nor taxes raised except by our own elected representatives. And now supreme power is held by people who tend to owe their positions to having just lost elections: Peter Mandelson, Neil Kinnock and what have you.

No one is talking about drawbridges or isolation. Nowhere else in the world do countries apologise for wanting to live under their own laws. New Zealand is not about to join Australia. Japan is not applying to join China – and do you hear anyone complaining about these bigoted Sino-sceptics in Tokyo? It is a natural healthy thing for a democracy to live under its own laws whilst trading with every other country in the world. The United Kingdom is the world’s fifth-largest country, its fourth-largest military power. How much bigger do we have to be before we have the confidence to raise our eyes to more distant horizons?

Faith Bandler: 'it’s time for us to remember that rights are not handed on a platter by governments, they have to be won', Faith, Hope and Reconciliation speech - 1999

August 1999, Woollongong, Australia

I first would like to thank the Indigenous people of the Illawarra for inviting me to come today. I was here once before and some of those past memories have been stirred with some of you whom I have had a chance to speak with, so thank you.

Lord Mayor, Evelyn Scott, Linda Burney and all honoured guests, when I put my thoughts together to come and speak to you this morning, I found a module in my thinking. It was getting in the way. There was a little sadness because I felt the reconciliation program had slowed since 1967 and then the considerable support for those who sponsored racism excused some of their terrible utterances in the name of free speech, and then the terrible tragedy revealed to us of the stolen children.

So briefly I will try to portray my thoughts of these days and the days before. Earlier we thought our efforts were set in stone. But the track hasn’t been easy and it was not so. It is hard to say what we have heard and seen recently, to hear it without shame and anger, and those are two elements which tend to stand in the way of the planning of good strategies.
Some who are here today have lived, breathed, struggled and climbed those ramparts of the rugged past, and when reaching the summit, have seen the ugliness when looking down – the disagreeable habits of those who close their eyes to the past, the willing ignorance and blindness to other peoples’ way of life, those who long for a homogeneous society where all think alike.

But I’m pleased to say that out there, there are decent people. They may have different cultures, different political beliefs, but they know there is a need to heal the wounds of the past, the terrible indignities.

My learning was rather hard and slow. It took some time for me to understand, when there are millions in the world today who are hungry, millions who are homeless, millions who are without work, the wrongfully imprisoned, the deaths in custody, the tortured, the mass murder of women and children, why in the name of creation our differences should matter. Why is it so hard to find our commonalities?

The most commonly voiced opinions of some who are willingly blind is that we focus on the failures and faults and too little praise is given. But if praise must be given it ought not to be given to the powerful but rather to the powerless, who patiently bear the brunt of many misdeeds and indecencies.

So in the struggle to reconcile you said it’s about working together. That will mean lightening the burden of that terrible baggage that has to do with our differences. And in the short term, there’s a fair bit to do about it.

Many have worked with determination, at most times against tremendous odds, with the talk-back jockeys lined up against them, and those who are deliberately blinkered and our troubled relationships with them. They are chained in their stubbornness, but we are free, and if we need to go forward without them, then we must.

To the youth present, and the not so young, let me say this: this movement should be one wherein we should ask not what is in it for me, but what is in it for us.

The fair-minded people out there can come along with us. None is without fault, none is without blemish, but they greatly outnumber the objectionable and the crude.

At this conference we might ask ourselves if our efforts are enough to make this country a better place for those who come after us. So you, the younger who are present, and those who are not present, have a hard job to do. You have brought change, true, but to eliminate some of the inbuilt attitudes of this society, the task is yet to be tackled.

This year Australia is celebrating 50 years of citizenship. Before 1949 we were all British subjects. Well, some were: it’s not 50 years since Indigenous Australians has the right to citizenship.

We are not to forget the White Australia Policy, introduced at the turn of this century, excluded the peoples from South Africa, the peoples from the Pacific Islands and all Asian countries from Australian citizenship rights. Non-Indigenous Australians had the influence of the White Australia Policy, and those to whom it applied were considered, at times, less than human beings.

Thus the campaign for Aboriginal citizenship rights, carried on from 1957 to 1967, was rather difficult. And it’s time for us to remember that rights are not handed on a platter by governments, they have to be won.

This conference in its deliberations will consider land rights. In the efforts to hold and protect their land from the invaders in 1788, there were many who lost their lives. There were fierce battles and conflict and, true, there were lulls, in the move for land rights. But even in the most isolated communities, the people spoke about their land.

For the executive of my council, FCAATSI, land rights seemed to be put on the back burner. It was the most poverty stricken in the whole of Australia, so we had to be careful with what few resources we had. These were the matters that had to do with equal wages for equal work, particularly for the black stockmen, and other needs like housing, education opportunities, freedom of movement, the false arrests. So these problems had to be dealt with and faced and we had to mobilise the forces to meet those needs.

Until 1962. Alec Vesper came down from the community at Woodenbong in the north of NSW, and he drove us on to form a subcommittee for land rights. I recall Alec addressing the 1962 FCAATSI Conference with the bible in one hand and the dictionary in the other hand, and he told us all to get up and fight for land rights. The result of that was that a subcommittee was formed to deal with land rights and Dulcie Fowler was the secretary.

Ken Brindle, whom I know the Illawarra people will remember with great affection, once complained to me that he couldn’t talk to Dulcie, because all she could talk about was land
rights. Dulcie initiated a petition addressed to the Federal Parliament for Aboriginal people to reclaim their land.

It’s a fitting time to mention briefly the struggle of the people for land rights of Mapoon, Weipa and Aurukun, particularly when Bauxite was found on their lands. And we might take strength by remembering their brave actions to combat the mining companies.

Jean Jimmy came to the south from Mapoon, and she told us how her people were forced by the police into boats to leave their land and as they sailed from Mapoon they saw their houses and their church on fire. Jean Jimmy and her people had an unforgivable fault in the eyes of the white people. They said the land they lived on and the land their forebears lived on for thousands of years was theirs.

Friends, what is reconciliation about? It is about promoting discussion. It is about the rights of the Indigenous people. It’s about those rights being enshrined in legislation. It’s about being watchful and remembering, and remembering that governments only might implement, and they might not. It’s about the violation of the first people’s rights, and it’s about valuing the differences of those cultures that make up this country.

In 1975, the Racial Discrimination Act was introduced. All rights must now be recognised, and it’s our job to make sure that they are. It is rare that a government will deliver out of the goodness of its heart, but history has shown that a genuine people’s movement can move more than governments. It can move mountains.

Dear friends, much pain has been endured in the past, and that pain is no longer designated to hopelessness. It’s time to move the process of reconciliation forward with a little more speed. That is the task. If not now, when? If not us, who?

Jacqui Lambie: 'I’ll pledge my loyalty to Australia and its peoples' Australia Day message - 2016

26 January 2016, Tasmania, Australia

G’Day! Let’s celebrate our Australia Day with pride and say our oath of allegiance.

From this time forward, under God, I’ll pledge my loyalty to Australia and its peoples, whose democratic beliefs I share, whose rights and liberties I respect, and whose laws I will uphold and obey.

Remember, if you don’t like our democratic rights, liberties and laws, equality for all, including women, gay, and Indigenous people, there are plenty of other countries to choose from.

Keep safe and have a happy Australia Day.

Deng Thiak Adut: 'For them the freedom from fear was death. I was lucky' Australia Day address - 2016

21 January 2016, Sydney Conservatorium of Music, Australia

Firstly, I would like to acknowledge the traditional owners of this land, past and present, the Gadiga people of the Eor nation.

Ten years ago, Clover Moore, the lord mayor of Sydney, talked at the National Maritime Museum. She said:

'Today, as we mark the beginning of Refugee Week, it is important to remember that all non‐Indigenous Australians are immigrants to this land.'

She continued, 'From the perspective of thousands of years of Aboriginal custodianship, the rest of us are newcomers'. I wonder what the Gadigal people in 1788 thought as they watched sailing ships coming up their harbour? Did they realise that their civilisation was about to be uprooted? Did they watch with interest and wonder? How soon did that interest turn to mortal fear?

It has been a 200-year journey for their descendants to reassert the right to be free of those fears, to acclaim pride in their traditions. That's a long wait.

The theme of this year's Australia Day address is that freedom from fear is very special to all of us. To appreciate the value of freedom one must first be denied it. To know real fear gives special meaning and yearning to being free of fear.

So what does 'freedom from fear' entail for you and me as Australians, or those who 'want to be Australians' in 2016?

Let me share with you parts of my story. It may be unfamiliar to those who have been born and grown up in a peaceful Australia. To those who have come as refugees from the world's trouble spots, parts of this story will be too familiar. A point of this story is to emphasise how very lucky we are to enjoy freedom from fear, and how very unlucky are many, many others who neither choose, nor deserve their fate.

I was born in a small fishing village called Malek, in the South Sudan. My father was a fisherman and we had a banana farm. I am one of eight children born to Mr Thiak Adut Garang and Ms Athieu Akau Deng. So the parts of my name are drawn from both my parents. My given name is Deng which means god of the rain. In those parts of this wide brown land that are short of water my name might be a good omen. I have a nickname: Auoloch, which means swallow. Alas I couldn't fly and as a young boy, about the age of a typical second grader in Sydney, I was conscripted into an army.

As they took me away from my home and family I didn't even understand what freedoms I had lost. I didn't understand how fearful I should have been. I was young. I was ignorant. I lost the freedom to read and write. I lost the freedom to sing children's songs. I lost the right to be innocent. I lost the right to be a child.

Instead, I was taught to sing war songs. In place of the love of life I was taught to love the death of others. I had one freedom – the freedom to die and I'll return to that a little later.

I lost the right to say what I thought. In place of 'free speech', I was an oppressor to those who wanted to express opinions that were different to those who armed me, fed me, told me what to think, where to go and what to do.

And there was something else very special to me that was taken away. I was denied the right to become an initiated member of my tribe. The mark of 'inclusiveness' was denied to me.

I had to wait until I became an Australian citizen to know that I belonged.

As an Australian I am proud that we have a national anthem. It's ours and to hear it played and sung is to feel pride, pride that we are a nation of free people. It has a historical background that is familiar to those who grew up here, but which is not easily understood by newcomers. I found it useful to take some lines from our anthem to bring together what I want to share with you.

To be here today, talking about freedom from fear, about the rewards that come from thinking 'inclusively', rather than thinking 'divisively', is to achieve something that the child conscript Deng could not imagine.

I came to Australia as an illiterate, penniless teenager, traumatised physically and emotionally by war. In Sudan, I was considered legally disabled, only by virtue of being black or having a dark skin complexion. As you can see I am very black and proud of my dark skin complexion. But in the Sudan my colour meant that my prospects could go no further than a dream of being allowed to finish a primary education. To be a lawyer was unthinkable. Australia opened the doors of its schools and universities. I would particularly like to thank the Western Sydney University where I received my Law degree and the University of Wollongong where I obtained my Masters degree in Law – an experience which enabled me to realise my dream of becoming a court room advocate. Australia educated me. How lucky I became. How lucky is any person who receives an education in a free land and goes on to use it in daily life.

In 1987, the year before the Australian Bi-Centennial celebrations, I was among many young children forcibly removed from their homes and families and marched to Ethiopia, for reasons that were unknown to me at the time. I walked thousands of kilometres without shoes or underwear.

What do we take for granted as Australians? Free education, food, clothing (more than shoes and underwear), shelter , health care and personal safety. We take those things for granted until we don't have them.

I witnessed children like myself dying as we made our way, barefoot and starving. As a child, witnessing the death of a relative is something that stays with you for life. Even today, I remember the deadened face and the gaunt skeletal body of one of my nephews lying on a corn sack. I saw too much abuse and death among my friends during the war. I sustained physical abuse from my superiors because of my inability to follow orders and for demanding decent treatment. I was a child soldier and I was expected to kill or be killed.

Within a year I was plagued by disease and malnutrition. I felt isolated and deserted. I remember being told off by one of my close relatives in 1989 because I was poking him with my protruding bones. He too was a forced conscript. We were stationed in a camp in Western Ethiopia that was disguised as though it was a refugees' camp. He told me I should just die. I understand now that he too was suffering from depression and by caring for me he was unable to improve his own situation. By this time, I could only take fluids. I feel sorry for my relative. I do not believe that he was trying to be cruel. He was just a child too, unable to properly look after me or himself.

In those days, what I needed was a loving parent. What child, taken away from the care of his or her parents will not suffer some form of psychological trauma? What child, merely seven years of age and ordered to witness deaths by firing squads will not suffer a lasting injury? What child, upon seeing dead bodies, lying in pools of moving blood, will not suffer some sort of long term psychological damage?

Around 1993, I watched some boys, only 10 or 11 years old, as they picked up their AK47s, put the gun to their heads, squeezed the trigger with their own fingers and blew out their brains. In a better world those fingers might have made music in a place such as this hall, built homes, operated the equipment of scientific discovery. Instead their short lives were as nothing – innocents destroyed. I, consumed by fear, couldn't pull a trigger myself, because I was too scared. Yes, fear saved me. But I understand why they did it. For my fellow child soldiers, pulling the trigger was the quickest way to die and for them the thought of dying was better than the reality of living.

I wonder what their spirits would have thought if they saw that I would become a practising lawyer in Australia some 18 years later. I grieve for them. For them the freedom from fear was death. I was lucky. You are too. Freedom from fear is about acceptance of our common identity. For we Australians in 2016 freedom from fear is almost taken for granted. We had better take care to keep it.

Let me turn now from memories of death to messages of hope, first for new arrivals to these shores and then to those who have long called Australia home.

To those recently arrived, do not give up the dream that brought you here. Within every Australian community there are people who were immigrants or whose parents were immigrants. Treat the experiences that brought you here as tough training for the journey of establishing new lives, new families, new careers.

Clover Moore in that same speech I mentioned earlier noted that, 'The Australian national anthem has promised that, for those who've come across the sea, we've boundless plains to share'. Surprise! Surprise! Australia is a nation where most of us, most of the time, seek to give and receive a 'fair go' and 'respect democracy'. It's that 'fair go' that you see in every new Australian success story. That is the 'Advance Australia Fair' in the anthem.

I know that some who are watching and listening will be wondering why I, so black, am ignoring that the ruling majority appear to be white. I don't ignore it, just as I don't ignore that the colours and faces of the Australian community are such a rich palate. Take a trip around an Australian city, visit a building site, walk around an educational campus, look at the names in our sporting teams, and hear, see, smell, and taste the richness of the cultures in any of our shopping centres. White is a colour to which so much can be added.

I remind every youthful migrant to remember and cherish where you came from. It is your grounding, just as important to you as this land is to the traditional owners of this place. Your parents and relatives made sacrifices for your freedom to be here without fear. You must have a dream that takes you up and beyond any past trauma and turmoil. We are special, each and every one of us. You are special to this nation and you ought to listen to your heart and take hold of opportunities.

Of course fears arrive unbidden and unwelcome. We all experience that from time to time. Can we get and keep a job? How do we keep our cherished cultural traditions alive? Can we earn respect? Will we be listened to? But don't fight your fears alone. Here we have the freedom to seek help from new friends, the elders, even a stranger who can be your friend at the time you need them. Remember, fellow immigrants, we begin as strangers in this land and we have much to learn. But the freedoms of this place mean that most of the time, from most people, there is a welcoming hand. So fear not.

That leads me to those who are settled Australians. This past few years there have been unexpected fears, the fears that random atrocities such as those that took place in Bali, and more recently in London, Paris and Istanbul will come here. We scarcely notice the frequency of such acts in other places where terror, not freedom from fear, is the norm.

Fears and doubt are the ideal environment in which to breed misguided obsessions and grand delusions. There is nothing new in such manipulation. It was done to me. Such manipulation of the confused and searching spirit of youth is essential for those who use others in their quest for power.

In responding to tragedies in which the lives of victims and perpetrators alike have been snuffed out to serve some demagogue, we must all be careful not to let local opportunists exploit our emotions with simplistic solutions.

What seems new for we Australians is that the physical barriers to terror such as distance and sea are now irrelevant. But this is just the shortness of memory. These barriers became irrelevant for the traditional owners of this land when the winds and the currents brought the ships of the First Fleet up this Harbour. More recently these barriers were no barriers at all when a midget submarine entered Sydney Harbour during the Second World War.

Then as now freedom from fear is something that must be fought for. It can never be taken for granted. Fighting must sometimes be physical and our War Memorials are testament to those who fought and gave their all. But the first line of defence against consuming fear is always our collective hearts and minds.

And collectively what makes this Nation one to be proud of is the willingness of most in our communities to be accepting, tolerant, inclusive and welcoming. Our anthem speaks of the courage needed to let us all combine. Now is the time.

The fears among us are not limited to terrorism. It is all too clear that partner abuse and child abuse flourished in families where the victims were afraid to speak out. It is not so long ago that gays and lesbians lived in fear of exposure. Attitudes and actions needed to change and that has happened, but there is still more to be done.

This afternoon, I delight in thanking all those whose support for 'freedom from fear' never wavers. These are the people, the people all around us, who freely gave me hope and sustained it. They understand the journey that has brought new arrivals to these shores from war, famine, oppression, and which then becomes the new journey that follows a new path, a path of 'freedom from fear'.

The spirit of giving walks that same path to remind us all about the less fortunate. The reward of freedom from fear has a price: to willingly give for others without hope of anything beyond 'thanks'. This is an obligation that never ends.

One of my early Australian friends illustrates this point. He bought me my first bicycle and got me a job to mow lawns. Geoff died a decade ago, and I shall always remember him for his encouragement, his faith, and his investment in me.

There are now so many friends, colleagues, and teachers who all in different ways have led me here. I thank you all, not only for your help to me but the likely help you have given others too.

Last but not least, my gratitude is to fellow Australians for opening the door, not only to me but to all the other migrants like me. Without your spirit of a fair go, my story could not have been told.

We acquire our community wisdom from our collective, shared experiences.

It's that wisdom, which underlies our entitlement to sing in joyful strains how proud we are today to be Australians.

Let's look at the future. My guru told me to live so that I can build a living memorial for my departed loved ones. There will be a charitable foundation in the name of my murdered brother, John Mac. We will raise funds and take action to alleviate poverty, bring education and better health to the lands where I was born and he died.

I will try to follow in the footsteps of a man who wanted to make things right.

I hope that I can be like my friend Geoff, giving less fortunate people a fair go.

I hope that all of us, each in our own way, will strive to understand and help others.

I wish us all a Happy Australia Day.

Rory Stewart MP: 'I believe that this is the first time that Parliament has discussed hedgehogs since 1566', House of Commons - 2015

10 November 2015, House of Commons, Westminster, London, United Kingdom

This speech was part of a debate in the House of Commons over hedgehog conservation and whether it should become England's national symbol in order to raise awareness for its endangerment.

Rory Stewart: Multa novit vulpes, verum echinus unum magnum, Madam Deputy Speaker.

Tom Tugendhat: (Tonbridge and Malling) (Con): In every happy home is a hedgehog, as the Pashtuns would say. I urge my hon. Friend to encourage our Pashtun community in this country to follow that example.

RS: I am very grateful for that Pushtun intervention, but my hon. Friend refers, of course, to the Asian variety of the hedgehog rather than the western hedgehog, which is the subject of our discussion today.

The fox knows many things, but the hedgehog knows one big thing.

I am extremely pleased to have the opportunity to respond to my hon. Friend the Member for Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport (Oliver Colvile). I believe that this is the first time that Parliament has discussed hedgehogs since 1566, when the subject was famously raised in relation to the attribution of a bounty of tuppence for the collection of the hedgehog throughout the United Kingdom.

The hedgehog has undergone an extraordinary evolution. The year 1566 seems very recent, but the hedgehog was around before then. It was around before this Parliament. The hedgehog, and its ancestor, narrowly missed being crushed under the foot of Tyrannosaurus rex. The hedgehog was around long before the human species: it existed 56 million years ago. It tells us a great deal about British civilisation that my hon. Friend has raised the subject, because the hedgehog is a magical creature. It is a creature that appears on cylinder seals in Sumeria, bent backwards on the prows of Egyptian ships. The hedgehog has of course a famous medicinal quality taken by the Romany people for baldness and it represents a symbol of the resurrection found throughout Christian Europe.

This strange animal was known, of course, in Scotland, Wales and Ireland originally in Gaelic as that demonic creature, that horrid creature, and is the hedgehog celebrated by Shakespeare:

“Thorny hedgehogs, be not seen…

Come not near our faerie queen”,

and famously of course in “Richard III” there is that great moment when Gloucester is referred to as a hedgehog. It tells us something about Britain today; it represents a strange decline in British civilisation from a notion of this magical, mystical, terrifying creature to where it is today, and I refer of course to my own constituent, the famous cleanliness representative of Penrith and The Border, Mrs Tiggy-Winkle.

I want to be serious for a moment. The hedgehog is of course an important environmental indicator, with its habitat, its ability to occupy 30 hectares of land, and its particular relationship to the hibernaculum, by which I mean the hedgehog’s ability, almost uniquely among animals in the United Kingdom, to go into a state of genuine hibernation. Its heartbeat goes from 240 a minute to only two a minute for six months a year. It has a particular diet—a focus on grubs and beetles. The street hedgehog initiative, which my hon. Friend has brought forward, reminds us that, by cutting holes in the bottom of our hedges, we can create again an opportunity for hedgehogs to move.

The hedgehog provides a bigger lesson for us in our environment—first, a lesson in scientific humility. The hedgehog has of course been studied for over 2,000 years. The first scientific reference to the hedgehog is in Aristotle; he is picked up again by Isidore of Seville in the 8th century and again by Buffon in the 18th century, and these are reminders of the ways in which we get hedgehogs wrong. Aristotle points out that the hedgehog carries apples on his spine into his nest. Isidore of Seville argues that the hedgehog travels with grapes embedded on his spine. Buffon believes these things might have been food for the winter, but as we know today the hedgehog, hibernating as he does, is not a creature that needs to take food into his nest for the winter.

Again, our belief in Britain that the five teeth of the hedgehog represent the reaction of the sinful man to God—the five excuses that the sinful man makes to God—is subverted by our understanding that the hedgehog does not have five teeth. Finally, the legislation introduced in this House, to my great despair, in 1566 which led to the bounty of a tuppence on a hedgehog was based on a misunderstanding: the idea that the hedgehog fed on the teats of a recumbent cow in order to feed itself on milk. This led to the death of between of half a million and 2 million hedgehogs between1566 and 1800, a subject John Clare takes forward in a poem of 1805 and which led my own Department, the Ministry of Agriculture, in 1908 to issue a formal notice to farmers encouraging them not to believe that hedgehogs take milk from the teats of a recumbent cow, because of course the hedgehog’s mouth is too small to be able to perform this function.

But before we mock our ancestors, we must understand this is a lesson for us. The scientific mistakes we made in the past about the hedgehog are mistakes that we, too, may be mocked for in the future. We barely understand this extraordinary creature. We barely understand for example its habit of self-anointing; we will see a hedgehog produce an enormous amount of saliva and throw it over its back. We do not understand why it does that. We do not really understand its habit of aestivation, which is to say the hedgehog which my hon. Friend referred to—the Pushto version of the hedgehog—hibernates in the summer as well as the winter. We do not understand that concept of aestivation.

For those of us interested in environmental management, the hedgehog also represents the important subject of conflict in habitats. The habitat that suits the hedgehog is liminal land: it is edge land, hedgerows and dry land. The hedgehog is not an animal that flourishes in many of our nature reserves. It does not do well in peatland or in dense, heavy native woodland. The things that prey on the hedgehog are sometimes things that we treasure. My hon. Friend mentioned badgers.

Rebecca Pow: Does the Minister agree that the successful survival of our hedgehog population is a direct reflection of how healthy and sustainable our environment is? It is important that we should look after the environment, because the knock-on effect of that will be that our hedgehog population will be looked after.

RS: That is an important point. The hedgehog is a generalist species, and traditionally we have not paid much attention to such species. We have been very good at focusing on specialist species, such as the redshank, which requires a particular kind of wet habitat. The hedgehog is a more challenging species for us to take on board.

As I was saying, the hedgehog is a good indicator for hedgerow habitat, although it is not much use for peatland or wetland. The hedgehog raises some important environmental questions. One is the question of conflict with the badger. Another is the question of the hedgehog in the western isles, which relates to the issue of the hedgehog’s potential predation on the eggs of the Arctic tern.

Patrick Grady (Glasgow North) (SNP): On the point about the hedgehog in the western isles, we have established that hedgehogs are a devolved matter. My hon. Friend the Member for Na h-Eileanan an Iar (Mr MacNeil) is not in the Chamber at the moment. Scottish Natural Heritage is doing careful work to humanely remove hedgehogs from the Hebrides, and it would be interesting to hear how the UK Government intend to support that work.

Rory Stewart: This is an important reminder that things that matter enormously to our civilisation, our society and our hearts—such as the hedgehog—have to be in the right place. In New Zealand, hedgehogs are considered an extremely dangerous invasive species that has to be removed for the same reasons that people in Scotland are having to think about controlling them there. It does not matter whether we are talking about badgers, hedgehogs or Arctic terns—it is a question of what place they should occupy.

Finally—and, I think, more positively—what the hedgehog really represents for us is an incredible symbol of citizen science. The energy that my hon. Friend the Member for Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport has brought to the debate is a great example of British, or perhaps English, eccentricity, and it is on the basis of English eccentricity that our habitat has been preserved. Gilbert White, the great 18th century naturalist, was himself an immense eccentric. It has been preserved thanks to eccentrics such as my hon. Friend and, perhaps most famously of all, Hugh Warwick, the great inspiration behind the British Hedgehog Preservation Society. He has written no fewer than three books on the hedgehog, and he talks very movingly about staring into the eyes of a hedgehog and getting a sense of its wildness from its gaze. These enthusiasts connect the public to nature, sustain our 25-year environment programme and contribute enormously to our scientific understanding of these animals. This is true in relation to bees, to beavers and in particular to Hugh Warwick’s work on hedgehogs. I am also pleased that the hon. Member for East Kilbride, Strathaven and Lesmahagow (Dr Cameron) mentioned national hedgehog day in an earlier intervention.

Ultimately, we need to understand that the hedgehog is a very prickly issue. The reason for that is that my hon. Friend the Member for Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport has raised the question of adopting the hedgehog as our national symbol. Some hon. Members will remember that the hedgehog was used by Saatchi & Saatchi in an advertising campaign for the Conservative party in 1992 general election. We should therefore pay tribute to the hedgehog’s direct contribution to our election victory in that year. But I would like to challenge my hon. Friend’s assertion that the hedgehog should become our national symbol. I ask you, Madam Deputy Speaker, as I ask those on both sides of this House, because this question concerns not only one party, but all of us: do we want to have as our national symbol an animal which when confronted with danger rolls over into a little ball and puts its spikes up? Do we want to have as our national symbol an animal that sleeps for six months of the year? Or would we rather return to the animal that is already our national symbol? I refer, of course, to the lion, which is majestic, courageous and proud.

If I may finish with a little testimony to my hon. Friend and to those innocent creatures which are hedgehogs, perhaps I can reach back to them not as a symbol for our nation but as a symbol of innocence to Thomas Hardy. He says:

“When the hedgehog travels furtively over the lawn,

One may say, ‘He strove that such innocent creatures should come to no harm,

But he could do little for them; and now he is gone.’

If, when hearing that I have been stilled at last, they stand at the door,

Watching the full-starred heavens that winter sees,

Will this thought rise on those who will meet my face no more,

‘He was one who had an eye for such mysteries’?

Madam Deputy Speaker (Mrs Eleanor Laing): I paused because I wanted to encourage some more positive noises for the Minister, who has just made one of the best speeches I have ever heard in this House.

Question put and agreed to.

7.41 pm

House adjourned.

Peter Fitzsimons: 'It's time for us to be entirely self governing', Speech for an Australian republic - 2015

26 August, 2015, National Press Club, Canberra

Thank you for the warm welcome. I'm delighted to be here. I wanted to begin by saying I am, you are, we are Australians. I feel that and I'm deeply honoured to be asked to address you on such a great Australian occasion, discussing this most important of Australian subjects, and from such a podium as this. 

I've loved myself being part of the press for the last 30-odd years. I couldn't say exactly when I was first published in the Sydney Morning Herald, but I think it was 30 May 1986. 

To be given the chance to speak in such a forum is as humbling as it is thrilling. I note the presence in the audience of many of my colleagues from the press and some of my rugby mates and I thank you for turning up, as I thank all of you for turning up and people watching at home. You will be pleased to hear I don't intend to deliver a dry dissertation on the legal niceties of changing the Constitution, me talking in a learned fashion about constitutional law would be rather like the favourite line I have from an American comedian Richard Little who once said Jimmy Carter as President is like Truman Capote making love to Dolly Parton - the job's just too big for him.

[Laughter]

That is not my strength. For my money, if the Republican movement has suffered from one thing over the years it's been a surfeit of deadly earnestness, of high brow wordiness. We need high brow, we have high brow, we have it in spades. But to this point the debate has lacked publicly expressed or low brow passion, and as low brow for me is a personal specialty, I hope you will stay with me. The key thing I wish to say today is we are putting the band back together.

A generation ago Australia had a go at becoming a Republic and for a variety of well documented reasons, most particularly including disunity, even among Republicans, and a Prime Minister who was a very good man but who didn't believe in the Republic. For those reasons, we didn't quite get there. 

But that was then, this is now. It's our hope and belief that sometime in the next five years Australia can again begin the formal process towards becoming the Republic of Australia. A Republic that we deserve to be - an independent sovereign nation beneath the Southern Cross we stand, a sprig of wattle in our hand. 

We respectfully submit that in the 21st century it is against the natural order of things that a mature and sophisticated nation, multicultural and independent as we are, proud of our egalitarianism and more than ever aware of our indigenous heritage, in this land, right here, not a nation with a history of 114 years or even two centuries, but more like 40,000 years, should still be finding our Head of State from one family of English aristocrats living in a palace in England. Please.

In every other part of our national life we honour those who have a go you mug, who rise on guts and gumption, their talent, their application, three parts elbow grease, two parts sweat off their own brow. We exhort the whole idea of the fair go.

There is only one part of our nation life, one sole part do we say no, no, no - no Australians need apply here, no Australians are good enough to get into this ultra exclusive Head of State job. This is reserved for the progeny of one family alone, not born in this country, not living here, and by hereditary right alone. Please, it does not fit in the 21st century. It is out of kilter.

And this I say, no matter how many of us might admire many members of the Royal Family, led by Queen Elizabeth the Second, we offer by the by sincere congratulations on the fact that Her Majesty will shortly pass Queen Victoria as the longest reigning British monarch, and wish her many years of reign ahead in Britain. Britain needs reign, we do not.

[Laughter]

It's time for us to be entirely self governing, and we believe it can be accomplished fairly simply, and with a bit of fun. We propose it starts with a simple question to be put before the Australian people some time in the next five years - do you support replacing the British monarch with an Australian citizen as the Australian Head of State. Bingo, simple as that. We reckon the yes vote for that question will look like Phar Lap at Flemington, like Bradman at Lord's, well ahead of the field and looking good.

Polling commissioned last week by the ARM and conducted by Essential Media show half of us are yaysayers, a quarter of us are naysayers, and another quarter say who cares. The polling shows that 57 per cent of Australians want to have that initial vote done and dusted by 2020, which ties in perfectly with our platform, and the answer to that basic question's always going to romp home as yes. And then we move to the next stage.

Through a process of political engagement with the public, perhaps a constitutional convention, a people's forum - the way they did it in Ireland - we come up with a model. And then simply we build towards a referendum to ask do you prefer the old model or the new model. At that point the situation will be more like Cathy Freeman coming into the final straight, Sydney 2000, say it Bruce McAvaney, she's got a lot of work to 

do. We will have a lot of work to do. Cathy did it, she breasted the tape, she was the winner, the gold medallist, and I reckon we will get there at last our self with her as our model.

As to what the model of the Republican should be, I'm here to tell you the ARM, we are like a toy aeroplane convention at St Mary's Cathedral. We are a very broad church with lots of great models that will fly.

[Laughter]

Our obvious challenge - once we have everyone inside our broad church is to decide and unite behind one model so we don't splinter like we did last time. As chair of the ARM I'm frequently asked my own view, and I thought you would never ask. It has no more weight than anyone else's, a member of the ARM, but here goes. It can fit into a tweet, but allow me to expand just a tad.

At the moment the system for selecting the Governor-General is very simple. The Prime Minister, the democratically elected leader of the Australian people, makes his or her choice and then writes a letter to Her Majesty the Queen, sends it 15,000 kilometres away to London, seeking from the hereditary head of Great Britain, occupying the most entrenched position of elitism in the world, her approval for this decision made by a democratically elected head of Australia.

I personally propose a single change - the minimalist model with no bells, no whistles and no postage stamp. I say everything stays the same, starting with the title of Governor-General and including the convention that the Prime Minister chooses that position, including their reserve powers, and including the writing of the letter seeking position. But here is the rub. We simply save the price of the postage stamp. Instead of sending that letter external mail to the Queen of England saying Your Majesty is it okay with you, we send it to the Parliament of the people to get a two-thirds majority, to say will you sign off on this.

I believe, when properly presented, my minimalist model - and it is mine, not the ARM's, plenty of people with- this is only my view - is the most likely to succeed as it addresses the foremost concern of the if it ain't broke, don't fix it crowd. Because essentially we are not fixing it, we're just doing one thing. We would be snipping one unsightly apron string that runs all the way around the globe, making sure the whole shebang resides holus-bolus beneath the Southern Cross.

Others within the ARM prefer other models, including having no Governor-General at all, and then of course there are many direct election models. Should the model that I and many prefer gain the adherence of the majority of Australian Republicans, that will be wonderful and it will be hoped those who like other models will fall in behind, and versa. If the direct election model gets up, we will fall in behind them. The important thing is to have unity, I might note, in the presence of Australia's Ambassador to Ireland, His Excellency Noel Stewart, you know I was talking last night about how well their direct election system works in Ireland. At all costs, this time we must avoid a damaging division.

The only thing I would note about the direction election model is that in Australia, it's frequently opposed by those who say they don't want a politician's Republic. And yet by making the Head of State an elected position, automatically for me that makes it a political position, and the Head of State a political figure.

Does anyone think, - if you look at our most beloved recent Governor-Generals, they've all been good. For me personally, two standouts are Sir William Dean, Dame Quentin Bryce - anybody thinks they would have won a direct election? Would they even have put themselves forward? Personally, I doubt it. But by embracing the minimalist model, we make the person holding that position entirely apolitical, above the political fray. I've always loved that line of Charles de Gaulle, the President of France, who said “de Gaulle n'est pas de la gauche, de Gaulle n'est non pas de su-
de Gaulle est au du sud ...” oh, I mucked that up. “de Gaulle n'est pas du gauche, de Gaulle n'est pas de droite, de Gaulle est au de sur”. De Gaulle is not of the left, de Gaulle is not of the right, de Gaulle is above. And for me, that's my vision, for what it's worth, that our Governor-General should be above the whole thing.

So we're now at the beginning of a great new push for the Republic of Australia to actually make it happen. I say we must do it like Ireland did, with the whole issue of same-sex marriage - house by house, street by street, suburb by suburb, powered by the passion that we have for the course, sustained by the logic of our argument. And that argument is that Australia is mature enough to run our own affairs and must be seen to be so.

And it could be fun. Instead of narkiness, going at each other and going at each other, it could be a wonderfully fun thing to do. When I was speaking to the Irish Ambassador's wife last night, Nessa Delaney, she talked to me about the program in Ireland that they had which was phone your granny. And the idea was the young people of Ireland phoned granny and tell her, this is going to be okay, same-sex marriage is going to be work, it can work. And there was this sense of fun, and how inspirational was it, what happened in Ireland? 

At the moment we sense the goodwill of so many of our fellow Australians but I'm here to say one thing today - it is that goodwill, your goodwill, is not enough. We need people's active engagement. We need you to sign up to membership, to donate money, to help convince the naysayers this really can work, really be a phenomenal time in our national history. Let a thousand flowers of the Republic of Australia bloom. 

From Penrith to Perth, from Darwin to the Derwent, Kununurra to Coonanbarrabran, let everyone who can help come forward, put your shoulder to the wheel, move the whole thing forward. If we have a plea in this coming debate, it is that it would be wonderful if we could be more gentle than last time in 1999.

Back in 1987 when John Howard lost that election to Bob Hawke, I never forget a wonderful concession speech that Mr Howard made. He said I may have lost tonight, but the things that unite us Australians are greater than the things that divide us. And it was true at that time, and I think it's true for most of our history. But I'm not 100 per cent sure that it is true right now. 

When I launched the biography of my friend Joe Hockey last year, I was critical of what I called the mad march of Australian politics - left, right, left, right, left, right, I'm left, you're right, I hate you, you hate me. All of that narkiness is so often duplicated in so much else of our discourse. In so many areas we're divided up into the McTavishes and the McTears, the Murdochs and Fairfaxes, the Liberal and Labor supporters, the warmists and the denialists, the believers in same-sex marriage and those who are traditional proponents of traditional marriage.

Couldn't we have just one thing, we Australians, just one thing, where we look forward to the quite reasonable goal - becoming the quintessence of a mature nation, which is to manage our own affairs within our own borders and just agree this is where we are going to get to and just hold hands gently, move forward, get there together as an issue where we first turn to each other and not on each other. Where we nut it out in the great Australian fashion together. It can be done, on this issue, above all issues, and there are already signs that Australia is tiring of the consistent divisions and want to get back to I am, you are, we are Australian.

Last month I was thrilled that for the first time in the not always friendly history of the Murdoch and Fairfax press, the two media empires jointly ran an op-ed piece I wrote calling for exactly this unity on public. My piece ran in the Daily Tele just below Andrew Bolt's piece, together. Brothers together.

[Laughter]

I have been thrilled with since with the offers of support that have come from everywhere, from people in all walks of Australian life and across the entire political spectrum wanting to help. One of them was from our Federal Treasurer Joe Hockey, who I'm pleased to reveal will be the co-convener of a new parliamentary friendship group for an Australian Head of State joining former ACT Chief Minister Senator Katy Gallagher. We thank them both. Kate, Joe and I go back a long way. As my wife Lisa knows, when I die, Joe will be one of the eight men that carries my coffin, and if Joe dies before me, I will be one of the 24 men that carries his.

[Laughter]

I will allow Joe to speak for himself on his passion for the Republic, but I might note, quite seriously, that he is only one of many, many in the Coalition with such passion, including Christopher Pyne, who has given the most eloquent speech I've ever heard on the Republic. Malcolm Turnbull, who was of course the driving force of the Republican movement, a man to whom the Republican movement owes great debt. Senator Marise Payne, who's a long time activist for the Republic, and the torch bearer of the Republic for the rising generation of Australian politicians, Wyatt Roy, who is the youngest Member of Parliament. Many, many more. I'm also heartened by how many influential and conservative newspaper columnists who've tell me they are of the faith, they believe in the cause, and want to push it this time. This is going to happen.

There are more and more Republicans across the spectrum - politically, in the media, among the public, and not just in the so-called elite but everywhere - rich man, poor man, beggar man, thief. Tinker, tailor, sailor, py, settler, farmer's wife on a dry and barren run. I was trying to think of, you know, female examples, but you are very sexist if you don't think the tinker, tailor, soldier and spy, they were all women.

Watch this space, we are moving forward. How exciting would it be too, if 50 years from now, that you could look back 10 years, 20 years, 50 years, look back upon the time when we became the Republic of Australia and say I was there, I did my bit. I put my shoulder to the wheel on that pivotal moment in the nation's history and helped turn that wheel forward.

And yes, of course, there will be committed naysayers. There will be nervous Nellies and nattering Neds who insist we can't do this, we shouldn't do this, we don't need to do this, we can't do it at this time because there are more important things to do first et cetera. 

Those naysayers have been there through all of our history and we love them too because they are part of our history. But they were there in the 1890s when the first real push, serious push came from federation - there were so many who said no no, we can't do that, we can't be more than six colonies of Great Britain on this brown and pleasant land we live in. The nation rolled up its sleeves anyway, they got on with it. They demonstrated we could be more than that.

The nervous Nellies and nattering Neds were horrified in 1931 when the Prime Minister James Scullin would for the first time in our history install a home grown Australian Governor-General in Sir Isaac Isaacs, and not a British aristocrat as was the long tradition. Disloyalty they cried, rudeness to the monarch. Nevertheless, Scullin's home grown Australian choice proved brilliant, it went on.

You know, we used have the Queen on all of our postage stamps, just the way it was in New Zealand. My dear friend Eric Rush, the All Black winger, said he grew up with the Queen on every postage stamp. When he met the Queen at Buckingham Palace, he said I was not sure whether to shake her hand or lick her on the back of the head.

[Laughter]

But we grew up with that, and when we first came and- he said that very respectfully, as I do too. But we grew up in the late 1950s, 1960s Australia, up until 1971, everywhere we looked, and when we changed it we started putting Australian symbols on it, there were people shaking their fists, you know, saying that this is not right. The same with the national anthem when we moved from God Save the Queen to our own, there were those saying no, no, we can't do this. We persisted anyway, we got there.

When Gough Whitlam started the process to say about the privy council -here's an idea - maybe our own judges, our own Australian judges can be as good as the English Law Lords, as the British Law Lords. And it took a while, a decade to go through, but there were those who saying if we cut the right to appeal to the privy council, there will be chaos. The answer is, for 30 years we've run our own show, and we've done it very well without problems.

My point is this, that every step along the way of separation, there has been those predicting catastrophe and there have been those who say - as they are saying now - not now, we can't do it. In the end we persisted anyway, and we got there and we have proven we can do it as a nation on our own. This time Australia should no more listen to the naysayers than we did in the past.

The thing that most stuns me in the argument against us becoming a Republic is the notion like the flag debate - which I note is entirely separate from the ARM umbrella - that separating our self from Great Britain disrespects our history. Please. 

This is as nonsensical as the notion that the push for the Republic was just a 1999 phenomenon and therefore should never be visited again because we have settled that.

But while it's true that this debate was at its most fierce in 1990 - I prefer not to say 1999, I say before the turn of the last century. In fact, the push for a Republic goes back a lot further than that, even well beyond all the examples I have listed about. And rather than disrespecting our history, Australia becoming a Republic would actually be a wonderful blooming of our history. A quintessentially Australian story of an underdog struggle against long odds, against an established top order, coming good in the end, go Cathy Freeman go, as the British Crown gracefully recedes, an Australian crowd rises and roars.

In fact ,the early settlers in Australia were keenly aware of the American and French Revolutions which we in the air at the time of settlement. The battle of Vinegar Hill in 1804 had a strong Republican favour. Horatio Wills, the great pastoralist who always wrote in his journal, The Currency Lad, 1832, that was all about the Republic - 1850s, Reverend Dunmore Lang and Henry Parkes campaigned for a Republic. The wonderful one when William Wentworth proposed a hereditary upper house in New South Wales and Daniel Deniehy said “what, a bunyip aristocracy?” Australia rolled with laughter, the very idea of Australia creating their own knights and dames was just the most unheard of thing anybody had ever heard of.

[Laughter]

Even Ned Kelly's Jerilderie letter had a fair streak of Republicanism in it, and in the 1880s there were 15 Republican organisations across the land. The great Henry Lawson, Song of the Republic –

Sons of the South, awake! Arise! Sons of the South, and do,

Banish from under your bonnie skies those old world errors and wrongs and lies …

Sons of the south make the choice between, Sons of the South choose true,

The old dead tree and the young tree green …  

The Land that belongs to the Lord and Queen and the land that belongs to you. 

So often another reason given against change is that our fought for King and country and flag. But let the record show it was not always the case. I'm coming to the end of a book that I'm writing on the Battle of Pozieres, and there is a scene at the end of Pozieres, we lost 30,000 men, casualties in the space of six weeks. And as they're coming out, there is King George and the Brits fall back as they do in awe and most of the Australians do too, but one of the Australian soldiers calls out “G'day George, g'day George, hello,how are you, good to see you!”

And you know, there is immediate “what's going to happen here?”, and the King was gracious enough to smile, and everybody smiled, and they would move on. But he then- this digger made a dissertation to anybody that wanted to listen, how it wasn't that a man was born in a palace that he was a better man than anything else, he was just a man.

I love the fact that came out in a diary. Republicanism is in our DNA, it's in the very marrow of our bones. It's always been there, it's just that we haven't got there yet. Now this year in the centenary of Gallipoli, there has been discussion about whether we can do better for a founding story than a defeat where we lost 9000 brave soldiers, killed for no ostensible gain. Some people say that we should - I think Paul Keating is on the record as saying maybe federation. Now for me, if you are going to have a founding story, the key has got to be, the starting point is it has to be a great story, that's your starting point, is a great story. The problem with federation as a founding story is that when you get to the climatic moment, what is the climactic moment? And then the Governor-General, he took out his pen and he signed the bastard, how about that? 

What about that? And you know, for me, it doesn't quite get over the line as an inspiring story. Well it is inspiring, but in a different- I don't think it will bring the masses and those of us with low brows.

But for me, I love - in terms of if we were to become a Republic - the story of Eureka is absolutely tailor made. I wanted to have here Professor John Maloney, the author of the greatest book on Eureka that's ever been written, and it's just a killer story. And I'll do it- I had to cut this back from ten minutes because I get carried away with it. But the guts of it is - 1830s and 1840s you've got rising Liberal democracy across Europe, it's pressed down, where do they go? They could go to the Sierra Nevada, to the California goldfields, they go to Bathurst, they go to Ballarat. 1854 you've got this collection of all these great activists for liberal democracy gathered in Ballarat in the one place at the one time, and on 11 November 1854 the Ballarat Reform League makes its claims, and it's got the six basic tenets of Liberal democracy - they want the secret ballot, they want the mail franchise, they want paid Parliamentarians and of course the red coats come for them and they haul up the flag on 29 November, the Eureka flag, and a wonderful story of Peter Lalor, the Irishman who stands up and he makes the great speech.

He gets onto the top, he climbs onto the stump, he sees the sea of faces drawn from all over the world, what you and I would call multicultural, but just for them it was a sea of faces drawn from everywhere. Lalor says I looked around me, I saw the brave and honest men who had come thousands of miles to labour for independence. I mounted the stump and proclaimed liberty. Killer story.

That night 2000 diggers marched on Ballarat. They sang La Marseillaise as they marched through the Australian bush. The next day, the Friday, we had in our history a declaration of independence. Now the Americans have got this beautiful prose, wonderful copper plate writing for their Declaration of Independence, it's under thick glass at the Smithsonian Institution. Ours wasn't like that. Our was a bit of a drunken ramble written on the back of a scrap of paper and nobody quite understood it, but it was a declaration of independence. So the next day, in the greatest Australian tradition of all, the diggers lay about, they drank too much, and they sort of fell into a drunken slumber that night, at which point the red coats attacked.

But it is- it's a great yarn, and after Peter Lalor, who was the one pursued as a traitor, 500 pound reward on his head, he lost his arm in the actual battle. I describe him in my own book as Australia's first one armed bandit, fleeing the red coats who were trying to get him. Within a year he was being sworn into the Victorian Parliament. He had not changed. Australia had changed, the world around him changed. The whole Eureka thing is a light on the hill for Liberal democracy around the world. As Gerard Henderson - a conservative commentator - has pointed out, it's surprising the conservative side of politics in general hasn't embraced this, given that one way of looking at it, the whole uprising was a collection of small businessmen and entrepreneurs rising against the iniquitous over-regulation that was stifling their creation of wealth. This is right up the Libs' alley.

[Laughter]

This is wonderful, it's a wonderful story, there's something in it for everyone. So that's what we want, a free standing Republic beneath the Southern Cross with an authority resting solely on the democratic will of the Australian people. Egalitarian, home grown, dinkum, multicultural inspiration. I repeat, the way ahead doesn't have to be dreary and controversial, filled with bitter clashes as it was back in 1999. This could be fun and inspiring. We don't have to storm the Bastille, we don't have to forge the Potomac to take on the Brits.

We Australians of the 21st century don't have to do anything so dramatic. We have to first and foremost get through the apathy, the notion that it is inevitable this is going to happen. No, it won't happen, not without the energy of the people that believe to actually put your energy in, to sign up, to do your bit. And this idea that it's inevitable, it's been going back through our history, the Sydney newspaper, The People's Advocate in 17 June 1854, the independence of the Australian colonies is not a mere abstract idea, it is certainly approaching- it is as certainly approaching as is the dawn of tomorrow's sun.

Again and again and again, decade after decade, it arises, it's inevitable, it's inevitable, it's inevitable. Bob Hawke, 1991, said the Republic is inevitable. Even John Howard said we'll have it in 50 or a hundred years, just not now. You will be pleased to hear I approached John Howard two or three weeks ago, and I said what about you as our patron. I'm pleased to say he considered it, I think for about half a second.

[Laughter]

Half a second, but he didn't immediately just say no, under no circumstances. He considered it, because I thought if we can get John Howard on board, you know, it would be game over.

[Laughter]

We Republicans, what we need, it's not inevitable and merely wanting it to happen will not make it so. We need engagement. Camera one on me - we need engagement, okay? Email us, write us, tweet us, get on with it, send us your money.

[Laughter]

Your membership. But ... we need to achieve the critical mass of engaged Australians and ideally non-critical mass media to make it happen and make it a political imperative. The ALP has committed to putting the Republic question to the Australian people which is a great start.

We don't know if the current PM - and he's a friend of mine, he was my rugby coach, and I like him, I get on well with him, we have never agreed politically - but I don't know if Mr Abbott will be there ten days, ten months or ten years. I wish him well.

But you know, I do believe that he will be our last Monarchist Prime Minister. Not definitely, but most likely. And after that, we'll hopefully get the stars that will align and we will get an Australian Prime Minister and an Australian Opposition Leader who are both Republicans. And at that point, how wonderful would it be if they go hard at each other on every other thing in politics, but just on this one thing, just on the Republic, how wonderful would it be to see the two of them coming together to say no politics on this one, we will just go forward together.

The other thing we have to get through I think is the celebrity worship of the Royals. You know, it's fine to -well, none of my business. If you want to get into all that stuff, go for your life, go hard. But the point is, it will go on. Don't get that mixed up with the governance of our nation. You know, look at Princess Mary in Denmark, can't read enough about her myself, love it, wonderful woman, came from Tassie. But you know, nothing to do with our governance, and the same - should we become a Republic, the Royals aren't going anywhere, they will still visit us, I would hope, like they do the other 32 Republics that there are in the Commonwealth of nations.

None of these need be disrespectful to the Queen and her family, including the latest additions Prince George and Princess Charlotte. This is not a rejection of them, it's an embrace of the idea that Australia is no longer derivative of another nation dependent on the Government of a motherland far over the seas.

For ultimately, it's not about the Royal Family and their children, it's about our Australian family and our children. In the 21st century it is ludicrous that we still have a system whereby none of our kids will ever be good enough to fill that role because they are not born to that family. I am, you are, we are Australian. We must call it for what it is - not right, simply not fair. 

Let's do this. If not us, who? If not now, when? We want not just your goodwill but your active engagement. We want you to join up with the ARM. 

We thank you, I salute you. Vive la republique, allons les enfants d'australie, and let's bloody well get going. 

Thank you.

[Applause]