A familiar question for Australians is how much we are a product of our circumstances, and how much we are what we have made ourselves to be. In truth, by the act of migration the country was made: by that voluntary act and by the emigrants' ambitions it was built.
I envy those Hindus and Buddhists who have in their religion philosophy and ancestor worship which build in the believer a continuity with the past, and that most important ingredient in the building of a nation - memory.
That is how our nation has been built - by a partnership between citizen and government, between individual and society, between a family and the wider community.
It is necessary to heal the wounds of the past If you are going to build your country and to have unity. I am working with people who fought me very bitterly before the elections. It was my responsibility as the man who is leading the majority party, my responsibility to heal the wounds of the past and to work with people who were my opponents.
Among the basic freedoms to which men aspire that their lives might be full and uncramped, freedom from fear stands out as both a means and an end. A people who would build a nation in which strong, democratic institutions are firmly established as a guarantee against state-induced power must first learn to liberate their own minds from apathy and fear.
But if we leave them alone, just satisfying ourselves with social work, economic work and the building up of a national army, it can make progress, hopefully within a short time.
Building a sports power is a patriotic undertaking aimed at translating into reality the plan and wish of the great leaders, who devoted their efforts to building ours into a country that prospers and grows stronger on the strength of sports.
