Source: Prime Minister of Australia
our Excellency, the Governor General of Australia.
Premier Jacinta Allan.
My Deputy Prime Minister, Richard Marles, and members of the team who are here. Members of the Federal Parliament, including the Speaker of the House of Representatives.
Other distinguished guests who are here. Particular congratulations
to the first leaders – elected leaders of the assembly here in Victoria.
125 years ago, formalities commenced here with the singing of God Save the King.
Today, we begin by acknowledging the traditional owners of the land on which we meet, celebrating the privilege we have to share this ancient continent with the oldest continuous culture on earth.
On the 9th of May 1901, the autumn sun spilled through these windows onto 12,000 faces.
The people who had packed this magnificent building and the cheering crowds lining the streets outside, were proudly celebrating two historic firsts.
An Australian first: the opening of the new Commonwealth Parliament.
And a world first: the first country on earth created by the free and peaceful vote of its people.
As the Leader of Australia’s oldest political party, I am proud to say that there were Labor MPs here in 1901.
And indeed, we had the first Federal Parliamentary Labor Party caucus the day before, 125 years ago.
But there was certainly no-one in the House of Representatives with a surname like Albanese.
There were no Senators called Wong.
No Victorian MPs called Abdo or Ananda-Rajah, Ciccione or Khalil, Fernando or Ng.
No Senators like Jana Stewart, a Mutthi Mutthi and Wamba Wamba woman.
Indeed, the only woman with a role in the proceedings that day was the Duchess of York.
Yet for all the lifetimes of change that separate that crowd from this one and their world from ours, what binds us and unites us is more meaningful and more powerful.
Because they were Australians, just like us.
They loved their country, just as we do.
And they loved it because they believed it could be different.
Better, fairer, more equal and more united than the old divisions of the old world that they and their ancestors had left behind.
That was the great national project the Australians of 1901 began, the foundation they laid, and it is the task that every generation has taken up, built on and passed to the next.
Australians have fought – and died – in the service of those ideals in war.
And worked to preserve and expand them in peace.
Through prosperity and hardship, global crises and national disasters, we have kept faith with that founding endeavour – and with each other.
We have held on to that oldest and most Australian aspiration of them all: giving those who come after us a better life with greater opportunity than we enjoy.
Now looking around this extraordinary space, it is hard to believe that there was ever any doubt about where the ceremonial opening would be held.
Yet for a time, it looked like the event would take place at Victorian Parliament House in Spring Street.
This would have meant, to quote the front page of The Melbourne Herald: “there will only be room for federal and local members of Parliament, and their wives and daughters”
And it went on: “the people will be shut out.”
The people will be shut out.
A simple fact, a practical point.
But also, a democratic argument, an egalitarian one.
And there is something in that combination that is perfectly, uniquely Australian.
After all, Federation was the people’s movement.
It had been given life by the people’s vote.
And for the work of the new Parliament to carry weight and meaning, it had to belong to the people as well.
We could not start with a small room and a select few.
We had to begin as we intended to go on: worthy of the bold ambitions and big dreams and broad horizons of the architects of this new ‘nation for a continent’.
125 years ago, they made the right choice, they took the Parliament and the moment to the people.
And there, on our democracy’s first day, we find a lesson that has held true ever since.
That Australia is always at our best, when we choose to lift people up – not shut them out.
Every time we have followed that national instinct for unity and fairness, we have been better for it.
Every time we have broken down barriers of disadvantage or discrimination and opened up the doors of opportunity, we have been stronger and richer for it.
And every time our people have chosen to engage with the world, indeed, to lead the world, we have all gained from it.
By nature, Australians are not much given to grand civic celebrations.
If you compare the way we mark of our 125th anniversary to what we will see in the United States this year for their 250th, I think the contrast says a lot about our two cultures.
But as Australians we can – and indeed we should – take real, patriotic pride in our enduring democratic achievement.
Both in the Commonwealth that our forebears created in 1901, and – every bit as importantly – in what we have done to make it better and stronger, together, over generations.
By making our democracy more true to our Australian values.
And by ensuring that our democracy values every Australian.
That is the spirit of our century-old system of compulsory voting, the understanding that citizenship carries rights and responsibilities.
And it is our evolving and growing national story.
Leading the world: the first country where women could vote in elections and stand for Parliament.
Changing the world for working people: with the 8 hour day and the minimum wage, Medicare and universal superannuation.
Opening ourselves to the world: by doing away with the White Australia policy and enriching our society with the hard work and aspiration of people drawn from every faith and culture on earth, united by their love of this country, their home.
And learning from the oldest continuous culture on Earth.
Owning and understanding the full truth of our history, so we can work together for a more reconciled and equal future.
My fellow Australians.
In the early months of 1901, this ceiling was redecorated to celebrate Federation.
Beneath the dome were painted Latin mottoes to offer inspiration to the new Parliament and to the people it served.
They are still there.
You can see, above us: Carpe Diem.
Seize the day.
That is the optimism and the determination that brought Australians together, 125 years ago.
And that is the hope and the purpose we carry with us still.
Taking inspiration from our past.
Grasping the opportunities of the present.
But sharing a future worthy of our people, our values and our home – the best country on Earth.
In that spirit, let us seize the day, every day, together.