Vew from the chair: Speeches of Richard WL Austin

If we don't change our ways, our attitudes and our infinitely clogged culture of government pretty quickly, we will find out in the hardest of all possible ways what it means for a country to go bankrupt; bankrupt in a financial sense, bankrupt in a cultural sense, and bankrupt in the horrifying sense of losing all title over this vast and potentially exciting continent we hold with an increasingly tenuous grip. What had happened in those ninety years to make it possible for a loyal and committed Australian like Peter Robinson to use such different words about the same countryl When Miles Franklin wrote, Australia had just begun to be the 'lucky country' it was to remain for the next seventy yean. Our standard of living was one of the highest in the world; we were hard working and competitive; we had a great and powerful friend across the sea; and the six Australian States had just combined to form the Australian Commonwealth, instead of following the example of the Spanish colonies in South America and becoming separate countries. That was our first stroke of luck. The second was Gallipoli. I know full well-as do you all-how appalling war is, but for all its cruelty and horror, it does bring out in the heat of battle, in both men and women, qualities of endurance, courage, selflessness and compassion far beyond the ordinary; often, indeed, far beyond what those who have exhibited them thought themselves capable. That is what happened at Gallipoli. On the beaches of that inhospitable peninsula our soldien had their fint real insight into what it meant to be an Australian. They felt a sudden sense of unity in the face of an awesome challenge and they knew that they were members of a nation only fourteen yean after it had come into existence. Out of that terrible ordeal, three qualities, quintessentially Australian, had their being: • Fint, mateship, which, transcending religious, social and ethnic barrien, is the peculiarly Australian adaptation of St John's words: 'Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends'. • Second, a reluctance to accept authority based merely on status, but a readiness to accept it when it is based on performance. • And last, a striving for unique achievement in all things, not just in battle, but in sport, in the arts, in science and in medicine. Australians have, over the years, echoed Browning's words: 'Ah, but a man's reach should exceed his grasp or what's a heaven forl'. Many Australians died on the battlefields at Gallipoli, in France and in the Middle East, and out of their sacrifices Legacy was born. A small group of retired servicemen decided that the trust and confidence that had existed between them and the comrades who had not returned should not be lost. They felt that a duty lay upon them to take the place of those comrades and do what they could to assist their dependents. Thus began the Legacy Club, and there are forty-nine such clubs throughout Australia. The creed of their members is service. 156