Remarks with His Excellency Ram Nath Kovind, President of India
22 November 2018
PRIME MINISTER: Namaste.
[Applause]
Well it’s wonderful to be here and to Your Excellency, Mr President Ram Nath Kovind. The Minister for Foreign Affairs Marise Payne is here, Parliamentary colleagues who are joining us here today, present and former, I can see you over there, it’s great to see so many of you coming out today. Lord Mayor, ladies and gentlemen, it’s an honour to welcome you here to stand beside the President on Australian soil for such a significant occasion, the unveiling of this commemorative statue of Mahatma Gandhi, the great soul.
As you can see from the crowd here Your Excellency, we in Australia are delighted to be hosting you here. Like Prime Minister Modi, whom I had the opportunity to meet with just a week or so ago in Singapore, you are a leader who exemplifies that great achievements are possible through sheer determination and hard work. From your humble origins you became a lawyer practising in India’s highest court and now you hold your country’s highest office. Your achievements resonate with Australians because we too believe with hard work and reward for effort, you can accomplish anything, regardless of your circumstances.
Your Excellency, as we discussed this morning, Australia is a great multicultural story. We are a people of great diversity, of acceptance, a people that believe in securing our opportunities - making our opportunities and seizing them. We are a people who seek to understand, we are a people who seek to respect all others. This is how we live. We believe if you have a go, you’ll get a go. That’s the fair go in Australia. And no part of our community exemplifies that more than the Indian-Australian community, whether that’s here in Parramatta in the centre of Sydney or elsewhere around the country.
When I was at Diwali out here a couple of weeks ago, I told the story that Australia’s multiculturalism, Australia’s great success story as the best and most successful immigration country on earth, was like a good garam masala. It brings together all the great spices. The cloves, the black cardomom, the green cardamom, coriander seeds, all of this, comes together – the cumin, don’t forget that. It all comes together. Have any of it on its own, it doesn’t taste as good. You blend it together, and that’s what Australia’s like.
[Applause]
So we come here today Mr President, Your Excellency, here in Parramatta, a very fitting place to honour a man who brought such light to our world. Mahatma Gandhi, spiritual leader and the father of India’s independence, showed the world that the power of weapons and violence are no match for the strength of peace, non-violence and tolerance. Australia also, our instincts are always towards peace. He believed in the preciousness of human dignity and stood in the face of all that might denigrate him, especially violence. When India lost the architect of her freedom in 1948, Australia mourned also, not just because the world had lost a great and wise man, but because Gandhi’s ideals were our ideals, as Australians. He sought lasting peace over momentous violence and that’s an idea that transcends creed, culture and oceans.
As the news of his death spread across Australia, the reaction was swift and heartfelt. Hindu seamen prayed and played the sitar and tabla. In St Paul’s Cathedral in Melbourne, the Anglican congregation offered this prayer:
"Hear the cry of India, bereft of that leader whose frail person so often stood in the gap, whose life was devoted, even unto death, to his country's cause."
At the MCG, India’s Test cricket team observed a minute’s silence before play began, along with the Australian team led by Donald Bradman. And in our nation’s capital, flags were flown at half-mast. Prime Minister Ben Chifley sent a solemn message of condolence to the first Prime Minister of independent India, Prime Minister Nehru saying Gandhi would “be remembered in Australia as a man who worked for the good of humanity and the ways of peace.” And indeed he was and is.
Australian Prime Ministers from Menzies to Turnbull have laid wreaths at Gandhi’s memorial in Rajghat and paid their respects. But we can honour him right here now in Parramatta too, when we stop to reflect at this beautiful statue. As the world marks the occasion of the 150th anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi’s birth, he truly lives on. For his message is not a whisper from the past, but a teaching embedded in the hearts of millions around the world.
And so I want to thank you once again, Your Excellency, for visiting Australia and for sharing this moment with the many Indian-Australians of the Indian diaspora and Australians all, we gather here today. Today, the bonds of friendship between Australia and India draw closer and tighter still and we thank you for coming and sharing this important moment for our community today.
Thank you.
