Speech at ANZAC Day Dawn Service in Washington

For our American allies, it's perhaps strange that we Australians and New Zealanders hold our national memorial day to commemorate a military campaign that resulted in one of the greatest defeats of the First World War.

I refer to the Dardanelles campaign, and specifically to the Gallipoli landings in 1915, where some 60,000 Australians and New Zealanders fought, casualties, more than 30,000 and as part of a 400,000-strong force of Australians, New Zealanders, Canadians, Brits, and Indians.

The aim of that campaign, at Churchill's direction, was to march on Constantinople, and knock Turkey out of the war.

The rest, of course, is history.

Under the leadership of Kemal Ataturk, the Turks bravely defended their homeland and the war to end all wars lasted for another three and a half years, and the slaughter was immeasurable, and without limit.

So why is it that we Antipodeans - Australians and New Zealanders - commemorate their defeat, rather than a victory?

Well, those of you who know us well will know that we are a curious people.

But as Antipodeans we literally stand on the other side of the world.

And we look at it from down under up.

And therefore meanings are sometimes a little different, at least to those defined at this end of the world.

But when it comes to war, I think we in Australia, at least, see both the worst and the best of the human condition, all at once.

Rather than allowing national pageantry to extinguish, to obscure or diminish, the unspeakable human tragedy that is also war.

We see human carnage, and at the same time, we honour human courage.

As men and women lift themselves to acts of individual heroism, which leave us all in silent awe generations later.

Of course, after the war to end all wars, we soon saw the Second World War - when the greatest generation defeated aggression, defended freedom, and secured the peace.

This time, some 60 million would lie dead, as the carnage assumed industrial proportions as the price to be paid for fascist political folly, and those who sought to appease it.

And once again, we saw countless acts of courage that inspire American, British, Canadian, Australian and New Zealand hearts and minds to this very day; of young kids who literally gave their all.

One of those young kids is with us here today in Washington.

His name is Bob Milford.

He's sitting over there with a wheeled chariot.

Bob hails from Gatton in my home state of Queensland in Australia.

Gatton, General Milley, is about as global a city as Boise, Idaho - not hugely.

Bob joined up in the Royal Australian Air Force in 1941, as soon as he turned 18 years of age.

I find it remarkable, as a father of two lads, sending an 18 year old off to war...

And Bob has just turned 100 years young these last few months.

After a period of the staging camp, just up the road from here in Boston, Bob trained as a wireless operator on Wellington bombers.

He then flew 38 operational missions over Germany, Austria, Italy, occupied Yugoslavia and Romania.

In one mission, His Royal Australian Air Force bomber flew just 200 feet above the Danube to deposit mines to deprive the river shipment of oil from Romania to Germany and thereby denying the Luftwaffe of their main source of oil, and therefore shortening, in turn, the length of the war.

Bob Milford, on behalf of all of us here assembled, we salute your courage and your service.

And yet, generations later, we find ourselves here again, here in 2023.

Eighty years after Bob fought to defend freedom in Europe, the same awful extremity confronts us afresh.

The good people of Ukraine and their armed forces who now defend them bravely, are in pitched battle against an invader.

If we read carefully the UN Charter, the one that we crafted together at San Francisco after the Second World War, it's opening clauses require all nations to avoid the scourge of war by honouring the charter's solemn covenant to both refrain from the violation of national sovereignty and territorial integrity of all states, and to use peaceful means to solve international disputes.

On the 22nd of February last year, in a single act, Putin tore that charter into 1,000 pieces, and with it, the last fabric of international law.

Some states have chosen to remain silent on this.

Others have even sought to defend it.

But the result is again before our eyes as more than 100,000 Ukrainians – men, women and children – now lie dead.

The carnage we see today in Bakhmut, reminds us of the carnage we have seen in earlier decades in the fields, in the bloody fields of the Somme.

Yet again, we see the extraordinary heroism of young Ukrainians, like 18 year old Bob all those years ago, who have rallied as one to defend freedom against the tyrant of our age.

The prophets of old called on us to turn our swords into ploughshares.

History reminds us that humankind has failed to heed that call, other than to remind us that, once again, the price of freedom remains eternal vigilance, both here in America, in Australia, and among our allies and friends and partners across this troubled world.

As we stand here this morning, we hear that message again across the generations.

You see, freedom is, in reality, the most fundamental value we share.

Some say it's too hard to define freedom – I disagree.

During the last local contest, Franklin Delano Roosevelt galvanised our nation in the world with the simplest articulation of the four freedoms.

And after the war, Eleanor Roosevelt had little problem in defining freedom when she together with her Chinese and Indian colleagues, crafted together the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948.

But for those who would still quibble as to the meaning of freedom, I think it is simple.

You know what freedom is when you experience the absence of freedom, and when you live in daily fear of either yourself or your country being taken.

So on this day, the 108th anniversary of ANZAC, the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps landings, let us remember all those who have given their all in defence of freedom.

Lest we forget.