Speech for the Prime Minister, Lone Pine ceremony, Gallipoli, 25 April 1990
It is not in the waste of war that Australians find the meaning of Gallipoli then or now. I say “then or now” for a profound reason. For the meaning of the ANZAC tradition, forged in the fires of Gallipoli, must be learned anew, from generation to generation. Its meaning can endure only as long as each new generation of Australians finds the will to reinterpret it to breathe, as it were, new life into the old story: and, in separating the truth from the legend, realise its relevance to a nation and a people, experiencing immense change over the past three-quarters of a century.
