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Press Office
Mr Speaker.
Mr President Pro Tempore.
Distinguished Members of the Senate and the House.
Distinguished Guests.
Ladies and Gentlemen.
I am the fourth Australian Prime Minister to address you here assembled.
Like them, I take your invitation as a great honour. Like them, I accept it on behalf of Australia.
Since 1950, Australian Prime Ministers Robert Menzies, Bob Hawke and John Howard have come here.
Speaking for all the Australian people through you to all the people of the United States they each came with a simple message.
A message which has been true in war and peace, in hardship and prosperity, in the Cold War and in the new world.
A message I repeat today.
Distinguished Members of the Senate and the House ...
You have a true friend down under.
For my parents’ generation, the defining image of America was the landing at Normandy.
Your “boys of Point-du-Hoc” risking everything to help free the world.
For my own generation, the defining image of America was the landing on the moon.
My classmates and I were sent home from school to watch the great moment on television.
I’ll always remember thinking that day: Americans can do anything.
Americans helped free the world of my parents’ generation.
Americans inspired the world of my own youth.
I stand here and I see the same brave and free people today. I believe you can do anything still.
There is a reason the world always looks to America.
Your great dream – life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness – inspires us all.
Those of you who have spent time with Australians know that we are not given to overstatement.
By nature we are laconic speakers and by conviction we are realistic thinkers.
In both our countries, real mates talk straight.
We mean what we say.
You have an ally in Australia.
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