" Ladies and Gentlemen

I am delighted to be able to join you today to celebrate Australia Day.

I particularly want to add my congratulations to everybody here who has auspiciously chosen Australia Day as the day upon which to receive Australian citizenship.

It somehow seems particularly appropriate that our national day should occur at the end of our long annual period of relaxation – a time when so many Australians are able to spend time enjoying our beaches, our parks, and every aspect of our magnificent country.

Here in Ku-ring-gai there are plenty of opportunities to do just that.

We are a hard working people, but we also like to take a break, and there is nothing more Australian than this time of year.

There is also, paradoxically, nothing more Australian than a citizenship ceremony.

Australia is one of the great immigrant nations of the world.

A very high proportion of Australians were either born overseas or have parents who were born overseas.

In fact almost all of us can say with precision when our family first arrived in Australia.

Only the first Australians, our indigenous people, can truly claim that they have lost in the mists of time the recollection of when their family first arrived.

For the rest of us, we can trace it back. It might be in the last ten or twenty years, as part of the great expansion of immigration from China, India and other Asian nations. It might be in the fifties, when there was a wave of arrivals from Italy, Greece and other nations of war-torn Europe.

And some among us can trace back their origins to a family member who arrived in the eighteen hundreds or even the seventeen hundreds. That arrival may have been involuntary back then, but that does not stop it being a source of pride now.

Australia has been greatly enriched by all of these arrivals.

I get into trouble in my family when I compare the contribution of Italians – such as my wife’s parents who arrived in the sixties – and those from the UK, such as my parents who arrived at about the same time.

The Italian contribution to our culture has included so many marvellous items of food and drink – pasta, olive oil, tiramisu, foccacia, espresso coffee. These are things which make life wonderful. The British contribution includes the brussel sprout and the parsnip. As you may infer, I do not regard either as wonderful.

But the serious point is that the character and texture of this nation has been made diverse and rich and robust by the wide variety of people who have come to make their lives here.

To those here who are about to become citizens, I know that you have been through a rather bureaucratic process – and a process in which you have been told about the benefits which you will receive as a result of becoming an Australian citizen.

Can I say to you on behalf of everybody else here that from our point of view, we know that we too are going to receive considerable benefits from you becoming an Australian citizen.

Your creativity, your ingenuity, your drive, your hard work, your talents are going to benefit Australia and make it a better place.

Be assured – we are pleased with our side of the bargain!

We know this from our experience and from the history of this nation.

Thank you to everybody who has come here today to celebrate Australia Day.

And particular thanks to those of you who have come here today to become Australian citizens.

I congratulate you – and I wish everybody here a happy Australia Day. "