TRANSCRIPT OF A PRERECORDED ONLINE CEREMONY OF REMEMBRANCE

 

OPENING SEQUENCE Flags & Magpies audio, Title, Warriors Graphic

PROEM
On
ANZAC Day
The Word ‘Remember”
Is On Everyone’s Lips
But
What Is It
To Remember
To Re-Member

ON RE-MEMBERING
Studies of memory show that a
remembered experience has hundreds
if not thousands of parts.

When I remember an experience it is
constructed anew from the ground up,
each time with a slightly different set of
parts and in a slightly different order.

Every memory I have is not only about
a thing or event in the past but also
about the way I choose to re-member
in the present.

Every experience I remember is re-
membered.

The way I remember is mostly shaped
by what is going on around me
at the time.

Context shapes the way I re-member.

Though I am rarely deliberate in the
way I choose to remember, I can
deliberate.

I can shape, change and choose the
context in which I re-member.

Today’s ceremony is about deliberating
on who and how we choose to
remember.

MCs INTRODUCE THEMSELVES
(RW) Welcome everyone to this online ANZAC Day Service in Mullumbimby NSW. My name is Rose Wainright and I’m here with John Addicott. We are here to share the role of Master of Ceremonies.

(JA) I now invite Delta Kay and Dihnawan to Welcome us to their Country; followed by Paul Smith who will respond to the welcome.

DELTA KAY - WELCOME TO COUNTRY [in language - no text supplied]

PAUL SMITH - RESPONSE TO WELCOME TO COUNTRY
We gather on ANZAC Day
to remember all Australians
who died fighting for their country.

There were Australians who died
for no other reason than that
they were here.

From 1788 to 1928, 140 years of Frontier Wars
Made all Australians, indigenous and non-indigenous alike,
The people we are today.

The first war fought on Australian soil
was Pemulwuy’s war, 1790 - 1802,
a guerilla campaign
waged by Aboriginal Australians,
led by the great warrior Pemulwuy,
against British colonists
in Botany Bay, Liverpool, Parramatta and the Hawkesbury River.

Other warriors in other parts of Australia
led similar campaigns.
Musquito Port Jackson and later in Hobart;
Windradyne, central-western New South Wales;
Yagan  Western Australia;
Tunnerminnerwait, Capr Grim Tasmania;
Dundalli  Moreton Bay;
Jandamarra  Tunnel Creek, Western Australia.
There were many, many more.

They were Australians
who died fighting for this country.

After five generations of forgetting
and one generation of denial
we cannot say with any credibility: We remember them.
Rather, our responsibility, for the foreseable future,
is not to claim, falsely, to remember those first Australian Patriots,
but to UNFORGET them.

We unforget them
Lest we harbour false memories
of who we have been as a people
While honouring those who fell
serving the nation we are still becoming

(JA) Thank you Delta, Dihnawan and Paul for that fine welcome and response.

MC STATES THE THEME

(RW) In 1914 we went to war in support of an empire to preserve white Australia. In 2020 we are a multicultural society that supports self-determination where ever it is possible in the world.

(JA) We gather today to remember who we have been as a people while honouring those who fell serving the nation we are still becoming.

I now call upon Alan Morris to give the Prologue

ALAN MORRIS PROLOGUE
We gather here to remember
who we have been as a people
while honouring those who fell
serving the nation we are still becoming.

100 years ago we went to war
in support of an empire
to defend White Australia.
Today we are a multicultural society
that supports self-determination wherever it is possible.

Clearly, our values have changed over time.
May the direction of that change never falter.

But do ANZAC values change?

Every time we have gone to war
men and women have pulled on a uniform
to defend the society’s values
as they were at that time.

The constant in ANZAC values is that
people put on uniforms knowing
it might cost them their lives.

While wearing the uniform
four qualities known to every human being
come to the fore:
courage, endurance, mateship and sacrifice.

The order is important.
First comes the courage to join up.
Then comes the endurance of
knuckling down to discipline and hard work.
Then mateship blossoms
as the salve of shared pain.
Finally, sacrifice.
 
Well may we  say
happy are the peacemakers,
because there would be no peace
if no one wore a uniform.

(JA) Thank you Alan for an inspiring prologue

THEME DEVELOPMENT
(RW) To restate our purpose: We gather today to remember who we have been as a people while honouring those who fell serving the nation we are still becoming.

(JA Speaking of remembering who we have been, and of the nation we are still becoming, is a way of saying that what it means to be Australian is not carved in stone. We are a work in progress.

(RW Our values have changed in the 106 years since the outbreak of the Great War. The most significant change is the flourishing inclusiveness of our society.

(JA) An aspect of the inclusiveness that is reconciliation with former enemies. Most notable in that regard is the integration of Turkish immigrants into our multicultural nation, to such an extent that there are Turkish Sub Branches of the RSL in Sydney and Melbourne.

(RW) The roots of reconciliation with Turkish people began on the battlefield just one month after fighting broke out at Gallipoli. During a truce to bury the dead the Diggers and the Mehmets saw oneanother close up as men rather than as objects of hate. After the war Mustafa Kemal Ataturk paid tribute to the Diggers. Ataturk’s words are inscribed in bronze on this cenotaph, a gift to us from the Turkish Sub Branch in Sydney.

(JA) I now invite Greg Aitken of the Mullumbimby Drill Hall Theatre to recite the words of Ataturk’s tribute.

GREG AITKEN ATATURK TRIBUTE
Those heroes that shed their blood and lost their lives ...
You are now lying in the soil of a friendly country.
Therefore rest in peace.

There is no difference between the Johnnies and
the Mehmets to us where they lie side by side
now here in this country of ours ...

You, the mothers who sent their sons from faraway countries,
wipe away your tears;
your sons are now lying in our bosom and are in peace.
After having lost their lives on this land,
they have become our sons as well.

Mustafa Kemal Ataturk
Commanding Officer of the Turkish Forces in Gallipoli
First President of the Republic of Turkey

(JA) Thank you Greg, for that very moving recitation.


INTRODUCE THE OCCASIONAL ADDRESS
(RW) People and nations often suffer the faults of their virtues. What seems to be a great achievement to some can be a stumbling block for others.

(JA) That spirit of inclusiveness that has has flourished in our society since the Second World War, visible as reconciliation with former enemies at the national level, has driven a widening gap within our society, between those who are comfortable with change and those who are suspicious of it.

(RW) That gap is now so wide that though the Allies won the Second World War, we are now in danger of losing the peace - a society so at odds with itself that social unrest and political violence cannot be ruled out.

(JA) Should that happen - should we lose the peace - those we gather to remember will have died in vain. Remembering the fallen, therefore, cannot merely be about valorising the past. It requires action on our part to secure the future.

(RW) Please welcome Paul Smith to ponder aloud about what action we might take to ensure that having won the war we do not lose the peace.

PAUL SMITH OCCASIONAL ADDRESS

I begin by restating the challenge we face:
How do we honour those who fought to defend our freedom
so that having won the war, we will not lose the peace?
Is is enough merely to valorise the past,
or do we need to be proactive in continuing to maintain the peace?

Clearly, we must commit to doing whatever it takes
because, if we lose the peace,
those who fell securing it
will have died in vain.
We don’t want that on our watch.

Not losing the peace means
focusing on what most threatens peace in our time
and finding in ourselves
the same courage and commitment to deal with it
that the Anzacs took to their fight.
It is our turn to be courageous and resourceful;
and willing to lose what we have
for the greater good.

BUT HOW MIGHT WE LOSE THE PEACE?

We will lose the peace
if we do not put an end to the shouting match
between the culpably polarised sections of Australian society.

If forced far enough apart
we could create the conditions for civil war.
That would certainly be losing the peace.

But it doesn’t have to be as total a failure of civil war to lose the peace.
On five occasions in the past
Australians have been so deeply divided
that rioting has erupted with fatal consequences. 

And it doesn’t even require actual physical violence,
but merely the paralysis of the whole society
to lose the peace.

That kind of failure arises
because people in ideological bunkers
refuse to talk to each other:
refuse to negotiate – 
holding out for an all or nothing win,
despite knowing that
an all or nothing of stand-off
always ends in
nothing for all.

Do you feel powerless?
Unable to believe
that you could make a difference
in such circumstances?

So let’s make this personal.
How can I make a difference?

If I think of the person opposing me,
not as a cardboard cutout
but as a fellow Australian,
how can I insist that my opinion is right?

This doesn’t mean that I should change what I believe,
but that I should accept that it is OK
for people to hold different beliefs
and make different choices.

When I accept that people have the right
to believe different things
and make different choices,
I can’t have a shouting match with them
and I certainly can’t shoot them –
which, let’s face it, is what we would do in a civil war.

What it comes down to is this:
I tell myself,
I no longer want you to change
when we are disagreeing.
I am the one who can change,
not by changing what I believe,
but by not insisting that you are wrong
if you don’t believe what I believe.

It is then possible for me to talk to people I disagree with,
to negotiate, compromise and achieve together what no one can achieve alone.
A whole nation of people talking to one another
instead of shouting and sulking –
that’s where we need to head
because to do otherwise
will be to lose the peace,
and those who fell securing the peace
will have died in vain.

How did we get here?

This polarised situation that we are in
is due, in part,
to the Allies victory in WWII;
and in part
to our failure as a people
to respond adequately
to the opportunity that victory thrust upon us.

The allied victory produced
two new political currents
that drove far reaching change
in the whole of the Western world;
change that was enthusiastically pursued by some
but which left others behind,
resulting in the polarisation of our society.

The first of those currents is
our knowledge of and response to the Holocaust.
The second is Decolonisation and how it changed us.

Had the Axis powers won the war
we would never have known
what happened in the death camps;
and decolonisation as we know it
would never have happened.

But the Allies did win the war
and when we found out about the Holocaust
we responded by
systematically and comprehensively
questioning every assumption and certainty
we have ever held
and began redefining
our values and commitments.

The most compelling proof of that is that
a century ago we went to war in support of an empire
to preserve White Australia.
Today we are a multicultural society
that supports self-determination
where ever it is possible in the world.

That is real change in values and commitments.

Decolonisation – self determination –
enabled the overwhelming majority of people in the world
to seize back their own voice,
and that in turn became the opportunity for us in the West
to redefine who we are:
no longer masters but partners –
more evidence of real change
in our values and commitments.

Change like this becomes confronting to some people
and in this country has lead to shouting matches
and the polarisation of Australian society
into mutually hostile camps.

WHAT ARE THOSE CAMPS??

On the one hand, those who are accused of political correctness,
and, on the other,
those who feel excluded
by the way our society is changing.

The situation is a product of victory and failure.
The Allied victory gave us the opportunity to transform ourselves.
But we failed to do so in a way
that was guaranteed to bring the whole country with us.
Some of us were impatient for change
and others reluctant to change at all.
Both sides dug in.
The result is verbal trench warfare of the present day.

WHO WILL LEAD THE COUNTRY OUT OF THIS?

Who has most to lose?
The Veteran community clearly has a great deal to lose.

No other section of society
is so closely identified
with those whose sacrifice secured victory for us.
No one has a greater responsibility
than the veteran community
to secure the future -
to act in the present to take the initiative.

Our interest and concern, as the veteran community,
can’t just be about what happened a century ago.
It should also about
what we have become as a people since then –
how we have both embraced and resisted
the opportunity to become a truly inclusive people;
a people who remember the cost to all
of our good fortune,
especially those who fell serving the nation we are still becoming.

Anzac Day and Remembrance more broadly
could reflect how
we who honour the fallen
can contribute to
the healing of our own society
to ensure that those who fell will not have died in vain.

What we do as the Veteran community,
especially on Anzac day,
needs to be rethought in the light of a century of change. 
If what we do includes
an acknowledgement of
the change to our values and commitments since 1915,
we would be in a position to recognise
Australia as a work in progress,
and to admit that the progress achieved so far
is vulnerable to civil sectarianism and disorder.

We who honour the fallen
might take the lead
in reducing the civil sectarianism
by questioning our certainties
and treating those who don’t share our convictions
as fellow Australians
rather than the enemy,
and hoping for the same from them.

We would then be in a position to say that
this is what our predecessors gave up their lives for,
and that by giving up our cherished certainties for the greater good
we are doing what we can
to ensure that they did not die in vain.

(RW) Thank you Paul for the call to action to ensure that we do not lose the peace.

LEAD INTO PRAYER OF THE CHILDREN

(JW) Even if we chose to be indifferent to the consequences of losing the peace for those who won victory, how reprehensible would it be to remain apathetic about such consequences for our children?

(RW) Out of the mouths of babes we are being called to account. Children are are speaking up in numbers too large to ignore.  Please welcome one such child, Byron Hissink, who will address us with a plea, a prayer: The Prayer of the Children.

BYRON HISSINK PRAYER OF THE CHILDREN
100 years ago we went to war
in support of an empire to preserve White Australia.
Today we are a multicultural society
that supports self-determination where ever it is possible in the world.

We gather here today to remember
WHO WE HAVE BEEN as a people
while honouring those who fell
serving the nation WE ARE STILL BECOMING.

In the name of
the children of the world,
we pray,
that you,
the adults who hold our futures in your hands,
will rise above the trite power struggles
that hog the headlines
and hold politicians to ransom.

We pray that you will live by
The values you claim to hold dear:
a fair go and the rule of law.

We pray that you will respect
other Australians who disagree with you
and question your own certainties
before ridiculing people you do not yet understand.

We ask this in for the sake of those who fought to defend our freedom
so that having won the war we will not lose the peace.


(RW) Thank you Byron for reminding us to live up to the values we profess.


LEAD INTO SONG
(RW) There is one word, Neighbour, that encompasses commitment to a fair go and the rule of law; respecting difference, questioning our own certainties and giving to strangers. Our answer to the question “Who is my neighbour?” is how we know whether or not we will lose the peace.

(JA) When we are not sure where we stand, words set to music can smelt the heart forge the will. Sydney Carter’s song, When I Needed a Neighbour, usually reflects issues familiar to us from the parable of the Good Samaritan. But the song can be  adapted to many situations, as now, with the title When They shouted Hosanna, to reflect the issues of concern here today, such as triumphalism, authoritarianism, and racism.

SONG [WHEN I NEEDED A NEIGHBOUR, SYDNEY CARTER]
When they shouted Hosanna
Were you there
Were you there
When they shouted Hosanna were you there
And the creed and the colour and the name won’t matter
Were you there

When they took me to prison
Were you there
Were you there
When they took me to prison were you there
And the creed and the colour and the name won’t matter
Were you there

When the crosses were crooked
Were you there
Were you there
When the crosses were crooked were you there
And the creed and the colour and the name won’t matter
Were you there

When the crosses were burning
Were you there
Were you there
When the crosses were burning  were you there
And the creed and the colour and the name won’t matter
Were you there

When I needed a neighbour
Were you there
Were you there
When I needed a neighbour were you there
And the creed and the colour and the name won’t matter
Were you there

LEAD INTO WREATHS
(RW) The symbolism of wreath laying has varied throughout time and across cultures. In the modern era, a wreath is a symbol of everlasting life and growth. The circle is a key feature of the wreath that expresses Inclusion, Unity, and Wholeness.

(JA) Today as we focus on inclusiveness as the touchstone of our national character, we bring symbols of Everlasting Life and Wholeness to this place which stands in for the graves of of all who fell, but especially those whose bodies were never found and given the rites of burial that were due to them.

WREATHS: Frontier Wars 1788-1938, 1st Anglo-Maori War 1845-1846, Crimean War 1853-1856, 2nd Anglo-Maori War 1860-1863,  Sudan Campaign 1885, South Africa 1899-1902, China 1900-1901, Great War 1914-1918, Peace Keeping Operations 1918 Ongoing, Russian Civil War 1918-1920, Armenian- Azerbaijani War 1918-1920, Second World War 1939-1945, Prisoners of War, Korean War 1950-1953, Malayan Emergency 1948-1960, Indonesian-Malaysian Confrontation 1962-1966, Vietnam War 1962-1973, First Gulf War 1990-1991, UN Intervention Somali Civil War 1992-1994, East Timor 1999-2004, War in Afghanistan 2001-Present, Second Gulf War 2003-2009, Operation Astute East Timor 2006=2013, War on ISIL 2014-Present, All Australians who fought for their country.

LEAD INTO SOLEMN SALUTE
(RW) At this most solemn moment, after the Ode is recited, the Last Post is sounded, followed by an interval of silence which is broken by The Rouse. At the Last Post the spirits of the Fallen are summonsed to the Cenotaph.

(JA) The Last Post also symbolically ends the day, so that the period of silence before the Rouse is blown becomes, in effect, a ritualised night vigil.

SOLEMN SALUTE
EDDIE RYAN The Ode,
Last Post,
Silence,
Rouse

LEAD INTO PERORATION
(RW) The gravity of the solemn salute is now relieved by the Peroration, a speech to inspire enthusiasm among those present.

(JA) The Peroration will be read by Frank Uhr whose family were prominant as Native Police Officers in the Frontier Wars. One of his ancestors was killed by the same Indigenous people he has written extensively about. So Frank has looked both sides of the frontier.


FRANK UHR PERORATION
Good morning. My name is Frank Uhr. I am an historian in the Brisbane area writing about frontier conflicts in the 1840s.

Australian Veterans are committed to
reconciliation with former enemies.
Strong bonds have been made with
Turkish, Japanese and Vietnamese people in particular.
We are constantly being welcomed in friendship
by former enemies to their country.

Today we have been welcomed
to the country of the Arakwal people of the Bundjalung nation.
This is an offer of friendship
that non-indigenous Australians can fully appreciate
when we acknowledge that
the first Australians’ 140 year struggle
to defend their land
was the first war that made us the people we are today –
indigenous and non-indigenous Australians alike.

Reconciliation with former enemies
will not be complete until the nation acknowledges
the first Australian Patriots –
the indigenous people who fell
defending their homeland against British colonisation.

What might come of recognising the first Australian Patriots?
There is Myth, much older than the Bible or the Epics of Homer,
which may help us answer that question.
The Mesopotamian Epic of Gilgamesh is, in part,
about friendship - a friendship wrought of conflict.
The two rivals fought each other to a standstill
and then “became fast friends” – companions.
While they fought each other,
each cared nothing for the humanity of the other.
When each failed to subdue the other
they recognised each other as equals.
The only possible relationship between equals
is friendship.
Or is it? Here are two scenarios:

Two people fight,
each intending to end the life of the other.
They fail. They stop fighting and become friends.
Together they do what neither could do alone.

Or...

... two people fight,
one intending to end the life of the other;
the other intending nothing but to preserve his own life.
The one fails.
By definition the other has succeeded.
But the one refuses to acknowledge
that there had been a fight
and goes about his business
as though the other is not there.
Instead of friendship there is mutual suspicion.

Which is it? Can it be otherwise?

Why do non indigenous Australians
still not acknowledge that
Aborigines fought to defend their land?
Why are those who fell defending their land
not acknowledged as the first Australian patriots?
Is it because the way the settlers fought
was not honourable and far from glorious
and therefore not worthy of being remembered?
What would happen if we did acknowledge
the first Australian patriots?
Would it change the relationship between
Indigenous and non indigenous Australians?
Would suspicion give way to friendship
and a truly equal partnership?
Would this make a treaty achievable? 

Does the veteran community hold the key
to an honourable settlement to settlement?
If ever there was a situation in Australian society
where equality between
indigenous and non indigenous Australians
becomes the norm
it is in the military.
How hard can it be
for non-indigenous military and ex-service personnel
to extend to those who died defending their homelands
the same respect they have
for the former Turkish, Japanese and Vietnamese enemy?   

As an eminent Australian said, half a century ago

IT’S TIME.

(JA) Thank you very much, Frank, for reprising acknowledgement of the Frontier Wars, first spoken here on ANZAC Day 2018 to general applause, and some misgiving as well.


LEAD INTO SONG
(RW) A nation founded by people convicted of petty crimes, like stealing bread because they were too poor to feed themselves and their families, will understand the sentiments in this next song in which a condemned man sees and denounces a great injustice.

SONG [FRIDAYMORNING, SYDNEY CARTER]
It was on a Friday morning that they took me from the cell
and I saw they had a carpenter to crucify as well
You can blame it on to Pilate
You can blame it on the Jews
You can blame it on the Devil
But it’s God that I accuse
It’s God they ought to crucify instead of you and me
I said to the carpenter, a-hanging on the tree
You can blame it on to Adam
You can blame it on to Eve
You can blame it on the apple,
but that I can’t believe
It was God that made the Devil
And the woman and the man
And there wouldn’t be an apple
If it wasn’t in the plan
It’s God they ought to crucify instead of you and me
I said to the carpenter, a-hanging on the tree
Now Barabbas was a killer
And they let Barabbas go
But you are being crucified
For nothing that I know
And God is up in Heaven
and He doesn’t do a thing
With a million angels watching
and they never move a wing
It’s God they ought to crucify instead of you and me
I said to the carpenter, a-hanging on the tree
To hell with Jehovah
To the carpenter I said
I wish that a carpenter
had made the world instead
Goodbye and good luck to you
our ways they will divide
Remember me in heaven
The man you hung beside
It’s God they ought to crucify instead of you and me
I said to the carpenter, a-hanging on the tree

LEAD INTO LORD’S PRAYER
(JA) One of the great injustices of colonialism in all eras is the suppression of indigenous languages. Think of the Welsh and Irish languages in the sixteenth century, long before Aboriginal languages were suppressed in Australia in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

(RW) Today we will hear the Lord’s Prayer, spoken by Brother Stephen Morelli of Woolgoolga, in Aboriginal Kriol, a language devised and used by Indigenoud people all across the north of Australia.

(JA) Aboriginal Kriol uses English words but Aboriginal pronunciation and grammar. It has different pronouns if the one spoken to is included or not. Wi means and is pronounced we, and means you, the listener, are included. Melabat means we, but does not include you, the listener.

BR STEPHEN MORELLI LORD’S PRAYER, KRIOL
"Wen yu prei, yu Sarra tok lagiiat.

'Dedi langa hebin, yu neim im brabli        Our Father in heaven
haibala, en melabat nomo wandim        Hallowed be your name
enibodi garra yusum yu neim
nogudbalawei.

Melabat wandim yu garra kaman            Your will be done
en jidan bos langa melabat, en            On earth as in heaven
melabat wandim ola pipul iya |anga
ebri kantri garra irrim yu wed en
teiknodis langa yu seimwei laik
olabat dum deya langa hebin.
Your kingdom come

Melabat askim yu blanga gibit melabat        Give us today our daily bread
daga blanga dagat tudei.

Melabat larramgo fri detlot pipul            And forgive us our debts
hu dumbat nogudbala ting langa            as we forgive our debtors
melabat, en melabat askim Yu
blanga larramgo melabat fri du.

Melabat askim yu nomo blanga larram        And do not subject us to the final test
enijing testimbat melabat brabli            But deliver us from the evil one
adbalawei, en yu nomo larram
Seitin deigidawei melabat brom yu.'

(JA) Thank you Brother Steve for blessing us with the sound of Kriol.

LEAD INTO ANTHEMS
(JA) The National Anthems of New Zealand and Australia will now be sung by the Musical Island Boys and the Australian Quartet TLA.

(RW) Archie Roach will then sing Took the Children Away. And please stay after that for the Children’s ANZAC Day Address.

NATIONAL ANTHEMS 

GOD DEFEND NEW ZEALAND
E Ihoa Atua,
O nga Iwi Matoura,
Ata whaka rongona;
Me aroha noa.
Kia hua ko te pai;
Kia tau to atawhai;
Manaakitia mai
Aotearoa

God of nations! at Thy feet
In the bonds of love we meet,
Hear our voices, we entreat,
God defend our Free Land.
Guard Pacific's triple star,
From the shafts of strife and war,
Make her praises heard afar,
God defend New Zealand

ADVANCE AUSTRALIA FAIR
Australians all let us rejoice,
For we are young and free;
We've golden soil and wealth for toil,
Our home is girt by sea;
Our land abounds in nature's gifts,
Of beauty rich and rare;
In history's page let every stage,
Advance Australia Fair!

In joyful strains then let us sing,
Advance Australia Fair!

TOOK THE CHILDREN AWAY
This story's right, this story's true
I would not tell lies to you
Like the promises they did not keep
And how they fenced us in like sheep.
Said to us come take our hand
Sent us off to mission land.
Taught us to read, to write and pray
Then they took the children away,
Took the children away,
The children away.
Snatched from their mother's breast
Said this is for the best
Took them away.
The welfare and the policeman
Said you've got to understand
We'll give them what you can't give
Teach them how to really live.
Teach them how to live they said
Humiliated them instead
Taught them that and taught them this
And others taught them prejudice.
You took the children away
The children away
Breaking their mothers heart
Tearing us all apart
Took them away
One dark day on Framingham
Come and didn't give a damn
My mother cried go get their dad
He came running, fighting mad
Mother's tears were falling down
Dad shaped up and stood his ground.
He said 'You touch my kids and you fight me'
And they took us from our family.
Took us away
They took us away
Snatched from our mother's breast
Said this was for the best
Took us away.
Told us what to do and say
Told us all the white man's ways
Then they split us up again
And gave us gifts to ease the pain
Sent us off to foster homes
As we grew up we felt alone
Cause we were acting white
Yet feeling black
One sweet day all the children came back
The children come back
The children come back
Back where their hearts grow strong
Back where they all belong
The children came back
Said the children come back
The children come back
Back where they understand
Back to their mother's land
The children come back
Back to their mother
Back to their father
Back to their sister
Back to their brother
Back to their people
Back to their land
All the children come back
The children come back
The children come back
Yes I came back.

PAUL SMITH, CHILDREN'S ANZAC DAY ADDRESS
Good morning  Girls & Boys...
I have a question for you:
Do you think  there lessons
that we should learn from war?

One answer is: yes, we should learn how to
be better at it and do what it takes never to lose.

We don’t want to lose, do we?
No. And we don’t want to be there
for the wrong reasons either.

So there’s another answer to the question,
Are there lessons that we should learn from war,
and it’s this: yes, we should learn how to
ensure that, having won the war,
we do not lose the peace.

Lose the peace!
What on earth could that mean?

I’ll tell you:

Australia was on the side that
won the First World War, 100 years ago.
But a little over a year later we lost the peace.

We lost the peace by being unfair
to the side that lost.
We made Germany take all of the blame
and we made the German people pay.

That made Germany run out of money
and paved the way for a man called
Adolph Hitler to take over his country
and lead it and the world back to war again.

That’s how we lost the peace.

Thankfully, our side won that war too,
and this time we learned from our mistakes.
Instead of making the losing side pay,
the winners poured money
into Germany and Japan
so that they could take their place again in the world,
and that made the world more fair
than it has ever been before.

In other words,
we learned to take responsibility
rather than to lay blame;
and we learned not to be greedy.

Now, do you think we might be
forgetting those lessons?

Do you see political leaders
behaving like bullies and cheats
and blaming others for things
they do themselves?

Do you see countries forgetting
to share what they have
with people who have lost everything?

If so, what can we do about it?
How can we ensure that,
having won the war,
we do not lose the peace... again?

Firstly, we can find better ways
to take responsibility for problems
rather than blame others for them.

Secondly, we can make sure that
there are more people to build
a better world by sharing
what we have rather than
building fences around it.

Now, you may be wondering
how you can make a difference.
After all you’re not in charge.
You don’t even vote... yet...

Let me remind you how
you are already making Australia fair –
the kind of country that will not lose the peace.

When someone becomes a bully in the playground,
you take the side of the person being picked on,
don’t you?
And you show the bully how to play fair.
You help the bully and the person being picked on
to fit in properly with everyone else.

When someone cheats in the classroom
you don’t pretend not to notice,
do you?
You tell the cheat, in private, to stop it.
And if the cheat doesn’t stop it
you then tell your teacher.
And you know that, having tried
to do something about it first,
you are not dobbing.

When you become teenagers,
you will continue to do what your parents tell you,
but, like every generation of teenagers before you,
if it ever seems they are being unfair,
you’ll push back.
In so doing you’ll be learning
the skills you need to
hold all people in authority to account.

But you’re not teenages yet,
so what about now?
How can you get the adult world
to see what it is doing to hurt your future?

You can’t make them do what you want,
but you can plead.

You can say: Pleeeeease!

Think about the things adults do
that make you go duhhr!
And say: Please! Please!
Why are you hurting my future in this way?

I’m not going to say
what I think might be hurting your future.
You see the news when it’s on in your house.
You hear adults talking about
what’s going on in the world. Y
ou know what you think is hurting your future.

But will adults listen?

Let me tell you: adults will listen.
We have a saying:
Out of the mouths of children…

So I make these three recommendations to you
as things you can do to make Australia fair –
to make it the kind of country that will not lose the peace:

Deal with bullies.
Call out cheats.
And think about how your future
is being hurt by grown-ups
and plead with us to be better people.

Can you do that?

Go in peace to love and serve
your neighbours and the world!

THANK ALL
(JA) Thank you all for tuning in to this ANZAC Day service From Mullumbimby NSW.

(RW) Go in peace to love and serve your neighbours and the world.

EPILOGUE, THE ABODE THAT ABIDES
[WORDS, PAUL SMITH;
MUSIC & PERFORMANCE, ROB YEATMAN R.I.P.]
In all places and times
In our hearts and our minds
In our loyalty and trust
In the truths that we swear
We’re conflicted in hope
Prone to live in bad faith
Inclined to back the wrong horse
Claim more than out share.

From within comes a voice
Mostly heard in our dreams
Makes a whole world of difference
Where we really are free
Where there’s nothing to swear
No need for hope
No such thing as bad faith
And everyone wins

When we wake we return
To being obliged
To trite power struggles
What it takes to survive
Our day is disturbed
By a skirmish within
Between what claim to be real
And the suspicion it’s not

Came the day I was caught
between pillar and post
Between the law of the land
And the land’s precious soul
The law said that I must March
My soul bade me to swim
I said no to the law
And gave conscience a win

We’ve been walking upright
Going there coming here
Taking over the earth on a moving frontier
But when prone in the water
Doing laps in the pool
We’re going nowhere but inwards
To the abode that abides