PADDINGTON TOWN HALL. SYDNEY
FRIDAY 23 MAY 2003
CEREMONY FOR THE PRESENTATION OF CENTENARY OF FEDERATION MEDALS
A CAUSE FOR CELEBRATION AND REDEDICATION
The Hon Justice Michael Kirby AC CMG*
RECOLLECTIONS OF TIMES PAST
I congratulate Peter King
MP and Councillor Fiona Sinclair King for arranging this notable occasion in
this wonderful hall.� It is right that
the citizens who have been awarded the Centenary of Federation Medal should
receive their warrant and decoration in the presence of their spouses,
partners, families and friends.� It is a
whole lot better to receive the medal this way than the way I received
mine.� It came through the post.� There was no fanfare or applause.� I even wondered what the package contained.
��������� Today the recipients will
be applauded, and properly so, for their varied service to the Commonwealth and
its people.� As a Justice of the High
Court of Australia, and as a citizen, I am proud to take part in the ceremony.
��������� Do you remember the first
time you received a medal or an award?�
I can remember it vividly.� I was
not much older than the youngest student of the Bronte Public School whose
choir led us in the National Anthem.� It
was about August 1945.� I was a pupil at
the North Strathfield Public School in Sydney.�
To celebrate victory in the War in the Pacific, every Australian
schoolchild received a "VP" Day medal.� This piece of bronze marked the end of the War in which our armed
services, and those of our allies, had struggled and sacrificed to save our
freedom.
��������� I was given the medal by
my teacher at the time, Miss Pontifex.�
Soon after, the schoolchildren were lined up on Concord Road to see the
Governor-General, HRH the Duke of Gloucester, pass by on his way to the Concord
Repatriation General Hospital.� We waved
flags - mostly the Union Jack - and wore our medals.
��������� For all of us, including
those who receive a medal today, our minds go back to such far-off times.� I can recall marching into school to the
tune of the "Teddy Bears' Picnic".�
I can remember Miss Pontifex handing out departmental texts with the
overpowering smell of glossy paper.�
This was something new.� In
wartime, gloss was out.
��������� On a day like this, each
recipient remembers his or her mother, father, siblings, family.� The teachers and schoolmates.� Those who gave precious early instruction in
religion or otherwise taught us our philosophies of life.� As we come onto this stage, all of us bring
precious memories and we are accompanied in spirit by a hundred or of others
who share this moment.
��������� At about the time I
received my medal, marking the end of the War, I began to receive other
awards.� I strove to win them and to be
worthy of them.� Miss Pontifex knew, in
the ways of those times, how to encourage me.�
For particularly good and neat work, I received an imprint on my hand or
forehead of a red stamp of the Crown.�
It signified a tiny success and encouraged me to try still harder.� That Crown burrowed away into my conscious
and subconscious mind.� Some might say
that it helps explain the link of loyalty that I still feel for the values that
Australians celebrated in those days.�
The Crown was a symbol of all the people and of service beyond
self.�
��������� Not long after the events
of which I speak I also learned another, different, lesson concerning our
federation.� It was a lesson of the
strengths of the institutions of Australia.�
At about that time my paternal grandmother had remarried.� Her new husband had been born a New
Zealander.� He fought with the original
ANZACS at Gallipoli in 1915.� After that
fateful battle, he fought on the Somme.�
He was a brave soldier and was awarded the Military Cross.� It was conferred on him at Buckingham Palace
by King George V.
��������� My Uncle Jack, as I
called him, came back from the War and lived in Australia.� He became disillusioned with the poverty of
the Great Depression.� He threw away his
medals.� He became a communist.� When he joined our family, I realised that a
finer and more idealistic man one could not wish to know.�� This fact taught me to be suspicious of public
campaigns and demonisation of minorities.
��������� At the time, many
Australians were very fearful of communists.�
They had reason to be.�
Legislation was passed by our Federal Parliament to ban the Communist
Party and to withdraw fundamental civil rights from communists.� The legislation, if enforced, would have had
large consequences for my Uncle Jack.
��������� It was at that time that
I first heard of the court in which I now have the honour to serve:� the High Court of Australia.� The validity of the federal legislation was
challenged in the High Court.� By six
Justices to one, it was struck down as unconstitutional.� In effect, the Court held that, in our fair
land, the Parliament could punish people for what they did and for anti-social
acts.� But for their beliefs and
opinions, however foolish, there was no power to pass such a law.� A great cloud lifted from the life of my new
uncle.� I was a boy of twelve.� But already I knew something of how our
Parliament operated and how a court protected the citizens and upheld the
Constitution.� It was a lesson that I
have never forgotten.
THREE CENTURIES OF MODERN AUSTRALIA
��������� We are blessed in
Australia with strong institutions.�
With elected parliaments and local government bodies.� With responsible ministries.� With uncorrupted officials.� With independent courts.� There is something grand (and I know the
politicians present will forgive me for saying this) to live in a country that,
from to time, changes its government.�
On one day the official cars are there for one team.� On the next day they serve another.� And all this is done peacefully by the vote
of the people, accurately and professionally counted.�
��������� Of course, parliaments
sometimes make mistakes.� I know
this.� But generally, given time, they
work their way democratically to the just and fair solutions that are
comfortable for the people of Australia.�
We have seen this many times over the century of federation.� This week, in the New South Wales
Parliament, we have witnessed another instance of democracy in action to ensure
true equality of all people before the law.�
��������� Of course, there is
occasional corruption.� But by the
standards of the world, it is extremely rare.�
It is usually discovered quickly and punished.� Our courts are truly independent.� They make their decisions according to the law and the conscience
of the judges and magistrates.� In
Australia, judges are not told by ministers or anyone else how to decide
cases.� The Communist Party caseis a vivid illustration of this.
��������� The building of our
institutions preceded the establishment of the Federal Constitution in
1901.� Indeed, those institutions grew
out of the period of colonial settlement that followed the arrival of the
British fleet in 1788.� Truly, we can
divide the modern history of Australia into three parts.
��������� The first was the
colonial century.� This historic hall at
Paddington in Sydney is a symbol of that time.�
How confident and sure of their destiny the founders of Australia were.� They built the courthouses, town halls, post
offices, railways.� They laid down the
infrastructure of a continent.� And then
they met together to create the Constitution under which we still live,
protected by the rule of law.� It is
fitting that the foundation-stone of this hall was laid by Sir Henry Parkes,
often called the Father of Federation.�
We must recapture the confidence and optimism of those times but
translate them into new and juster times.
��������� The second century, after
federation, saw the development of a national parliament and government, of the
States and their parliaments and governments, of local government and of the
integrated system of courts.� Of a
national economy, as envisaged by the Constitution, and of the businesses, arts
and culture, the armed forces and civil groups that grew up in the new
nation.�
��������� And what of the third
century?� There is no doubt that the
challenges for our institutions will be even greater.� The most important opinion I have read this year was written not
by a judge but by Sir Martin Rees, Britain's Astronomer Royal and Royal
Society Professor at Cambridge University for a decade.� Writing in the New Scientist (May 3, 2003, p 30 "The Final Countdown"),
this distinguished scientist makes the point that we now "face some
difficult decisions" requiring us to map out "the safest and most
responsible way to develop them further".�
He concludes that "humanity is more at risk than at any other phase
in its history", and that "this is a critical time".� He says that "our future as a species
may depend on the choices we make in the next hundred years".
��������� According to Rees, the
dangers grow out of particular developments of science, when unsupervised by
human authority reflecting human values.�
He instances the creation of "quark matter" at laboratories in
the United States and Geneva - producing something that may only have
existed in the first microsecond of cosmic history.� Rees also refers to the likely future advances of
"nanobots", robots created with artificial intelligence of infinitely
greater power than the human mind.� He
mentions developments of biotechnology and the safety and ethical spin-offs of
recent discoveries.� Obviously, these
include the jumping of viruses from other species to human beings because of
experiments inadequately controlled.�
According to Rees, in the future there may be no need of Al Quaeda type
terrorists to trigger events on a scale of threatening proportions:� "Just a fanatic or social misfit with
the mindset of those who now design computer viruses".
��������� I was in Paris last week
for a meeting of the International Bioethics Committee.� We were invited to the Elys�e Palace for a working session with President Jacques
Chirac.� In my faltering French, I
congratulated him for his interest in the interface of science and
technology.� In Australia in its third
century, we will need politicians with those interests.� That century belongs to science and
technology.� Their dilemmas will test
our society and its institutions; indeed they will test the world and our
species.
A MORE PERFECT�
UNION
��������� I have not pretended that
the history of the first century of Australian federation, celebrated by these
medals, was one of unalloyed achievements.�
We now realise that many wrongs were done, including by law, to the
Aboriginal and other indigenous peoples of Australia.� Yet in recent decades, the parliaments, federal, state and
territory and the courts since the Mabo decision,
have played a positive part in responding to the need for reconciliation with
the original peoples of this continent and their descendants.� The process will continue into the third
century.
��������� There were many wrongs to
women and much discrimination against them.�
There still is.� Yet laws have
been passed and opportunities have opened which show the way of the future for
all people: men and women, truly equal in our Commonwealth.
��������� In the first century of
federation, it was not easy to be an Asian Australian or an Australian of other
ethnicities or a person of colour.� The
law at first reinforced the White Australia policy.� It devised the devilish dictation test to keep out of this
country so-called coloured people.� Yet,
in a remarkably short time, White Australia has been swept away.� We now rejoice in a multicultural
society.� It is evident in the
recipients of the medals awarded in this ceremony.� It is an extraordinary change in a foundational principle of our
nation.� Few countries have changed
themselves in such a radical way so quickly and so peacefully.�
��������� There have been other
wrongs to other citizens in the last century.�
To Australians of minority religions.�
To Australians who are homosexual.�
To the old and the young.� Yet
gradually here, too, we are repairing the wrongs.� Eventually we will make things right.
��������� Australia is a
self-critical country.� Even on a happy
occasion, when we consider our achievements, we reflect also on our
failures.� And all of us resolve to do
more to right wrongs and to bring equal justice to everyone.
THE UNKNOWN WINNERS
��������� So when the recipients
come forward, they do so as citizens of a country undergoing renewal.� They bring with them the names and memories
of those many who helped them to this day.�
Each one of us, as we step forward, could name many, many others who
deserve the award as much as, if not more than, we do.� We know their names.� In my case, I would like to name two.
��������� The first is my sister,
Diana.� She is a nursing sister at a
leading Sydney teaching hospital.� She
works in oncology.� When my mother was
desperately ill, indeed dying, I went into her frightening world for a week.� I saw the loving-kindness that my sister's
colleagues exhibit day by busy day to people who are desperately ill.� It was a humbling experience.� Diana receives no medal today.� But in all truth, she deserves one, at least
as much as I.
��������� And I would also name my
partner, Johan van Vloten, who is here with me at this ceremony.� He is an ANKALI.� As a volunteer, he looks after people who
are living with HIV/AIDS.� It is not
high profile work.� Quite the contrary.� He cooks meals.� He cleans the toilet bowl.�
He takes the dog for a walk.� He
is just there to talk, to help and to encourage.� In Australia, there are millions of volunteers like Johan doing
all kinds of activities for others freely.�
These are the unsung heroes of our nation.� Each one of them deserves a medal.� They are with us in spirit as we acknowledge today's recipients.
��������� And so we gather on this
autumn day, in a beautiful place, in the company of those dear to us to
celebrate in this special way the blessings of our Commonwealth.� We do so without proud boast or foolish
pride.� I will be glad to join Peter
King in presenting the medals.� It sure
beats receiving them in the post.
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