Annual Address 2025

Admiral Arthur Phillip Memorial Service

Transcript of Address by Alexander Downer

I'm delighted to have the opportunity to give the Address this evening commemorating Admiral Arthur Phillip, the Founder of Modern Australia.

Now, when you think about Australia over the last nearly two and a half centuries, you can see a consistent theme running through the evolution of modern Australian society. It is quintessentially - and I mean this in the non-political sense - a liberal country which has always had as its core the values of Christianity, which are the foundation of liberal values. A belief in the full value of all men and women regardless of their innate characteristics; a view that perhaps is less popular now, but would be popular here in this church, that men and women are made in the image of God.

But Australia, as it has evolved, was inspired also by the enlightenment and the evolution of 19th Century British liberalism. So this is a constant theme as I have explained in Australian history, which recurs regardless of the politics of the day. This theme began with Arthur Phillip and the first fleet in 1788, when he arrived with his 11 ships, convicts, marines and a few others, to establish a colony. It was a monumental challenge. It is hard for us to imagine how difficult that task must have been and of course they suffered from famine, food shortages and many difficulties as they tried to get the colony going. But what Arthur Philip, as the Founder of Modern Australia, would have brought to the country were these values, which had been enduring. Of course, this is the late 18th Century. People saw the world, saw each other, saw values in a very different way than we do today. Don't be self-righteous though. Because in 100 years, people will look back at our values today and will laugh and sneer and be critical – be sure of that, when you are laughing and sneering at the values of your ancestors. Don't forget that Arthur Phillip was brought up in an era of discrimination, and a very fiercely class-based society, and yet, when he went to Australia and became the Governor - the first Governor of New South Wales, as it became known, and eventually, Australia - he brought with him an extraordinary set of values.

So let's just take the egalitarianism of Arthur Phillip. He endured, and they all endured, as I mentioned, real hardship, food shortages, problems with water, difficulty with accommodation and so on, and there they were convicts, marines and administrators like Arthur Phillip. And at the top of the social hierarchy was, of course, the Governor. But through this period, and particularly a period of famine, Arthur Phillip made sure that every single person got an equal ration, whether they were convicts, whether they were marines, whether they were administrators or he himself, because as the Governor, of the Commander of the new colony, he was entitled to a great deal more food than say, by contrast, a convict. Yet he gave up his excessive share of the rations to make sure they were shared. He didn't, if you like, apply any class distinction when it came to something as fundamental as food and the other people standing by.

Secondly, as far as the convicts themselves were concerned, he absolutely drew the line at any mistreatment of those convicts. Yes, of course, they were people who committed crimes over here. Many of them came from Ireland. They were criminals. There's no question of that, although, by our standard some of their crimes would have been regarded as petty and we often turn a blind eye to those crimes nowadays which we regard as petty. In those days, they were less forgiving. So he had on his hands, a large number of criminals, yet he was totally opposed to any mistreatment of those convicts, and he believed that most of them - to be fair, not all of them, but most of them - could eventually be rehabilitated and become staunch citizens of Australian society, which indeed they did become.

Thirdly, his treatment of the indigenous people, of the Aboriginal people of Australia, was extraordinary by the standards of the day. So, there was this Englishman with British convicts, turning up and confronting an indigenous people who were completely different. They had none of the technology available to them that Britain had developed, or Europe more generally developed at that time, and lived in a completely different lifestyle. And it's possible that in that environment, Europeans and you saw this elsewhere, would treat indigenous people badly, in a patronising way, exploit them and disregard their sensitivities. But that wasn't Arthur Phillip's approach, and it's important to remember this, he had a view in universal humanity, rather than an innate hierarchy. He believed that indigenous Australians should be properly treated.

And let me just quote a couple of things that he wrote: "I have always endeavoured to treat the natives [what we call indigenous people] with kindness and respect wherever I can. I wish to use my influence to prevent their being wronged." He went on to say, "I frequently call the attention of the settlers to the necessity of treating the natives with civility and respect, and I desire them to avoid all acts of violence." And when it came to an issue which in Australia has been controversial, really since European settlement in 1788, land rights, he said this, "I have found the natives do not forfeit their right to the soil because they do not cultivate it." That actually became a more popular view as time went on, that because the soil was not cultivated, they had to forfeit their rights as they didn't have any rights. But he didn't believe that, not Arthur Phillip and on the issue of cultural understanding, he wrote, "we can secure better relations with the natives by treating them with justice. The advantages of this can not be too strongly impressed on the minds of the settlers."

I wanted to spend a bit of time focusing on that issue, because some people debate the virtue of European, particularly British, settlement in Australia and the treatment of indigenous people. But the first, if you like, great Australian Arthur Phillip treated the indigenous people with great respect, even by the standards of today and remember this was a completely different era, even by the standards of the day. Those quotes that I read out from his writings are pretty impressive.

What he also wrote - and this was 1788 remember for he had set sail from England in 1787 - was that under no circumstances would he come to know slavery in Australia. And as you know, they there was such slavery in particular in Africa and the Americas at that time. So here was a truly impressive man who had the values, if you like, of liberalism - and I mean that in the non-political sense -ingrained in his soul. What Arthur Phillip did was set a base line for the evolution of Australia. So Australia has increasingly been an impressively egalitarian society.

In Australia, first of all, people were given the vote in the middle of the 19th century. When they were given the vote, by the way, in New South Wales, indigenous men in 1856 were able to vote. So, there was discrimination against women, women weren't able to vote in 1856 ,but all men including indigenous men, regardless of their race, regardless of their religion, but not regardless of their property ownership were able to vote. I mean that was very unusual by the standards of Europe at that time. It's worth noting that in 1894 South Australia, where I come from, South Australia gave women the vote and the right to stand for parliament. South Australia was not the first place in the world to give women the right to vote; that prize was won by New Zealand one year earlier, but in South Australia's case, it gave women the right to stand for parliament as well as to vote. That sounds like a fairly normal type of thing these days, but in 1894 that was an extraordinary development, and indeed nationwide in federal elections - and Federation only began in 1901 - in federal elections, women were given the vote in 1908 well before the UK and pretty much before the suffragette movement and well before the United States.

Australia also invented, something we take for granted now every time there is an election, the secret ballot. Australia became, as often described, a worker's paradise, because of its egalitarianism. It set up a whole structure of protecting worker's rights that set up a Conciliation and Arbitration Commission, which is called Fair Work Commission today, a way of regulating the wages and conditions of employment which the general population would see to be fair.

Australia's legal system, which is inherited from the UK, guarantees that all Australians regardless of the position they hold, are equal under the law. So we take all these things for granted today, but my argument is that from the time Arthur Phillip arrived in Australia onwards, there was this extraordinary evolution of egalitarianism and liberalism in Australia, which Arthur Phillip, in a way, perhaps subconsciously, had articulated when he first came to establish this colony in Australia.

We also have in Australia, a division of power. Power concentrated in the hands of too few people, is, as you know, a very dangerous thing and Australia have a very elaborate system of division of powers. Not just division of powers between the executive and the judiciary but a division of powers because it is a Federation, so between the States and the Federal Government. So let me reassure you, as you're sitting there thinking, you may have many criticisms of Australia and it's true - Australia is not perfect, Australia has made many mistakes since Arthur Phillip arrived on that January day in 1788 and of course, we've made mistakes, all societies have made mistakes. But we have a huge amount to be proud of to be Australian and I do think, if I could say something to those of you who are British, you should be proud of what you created in Australia from 1788 onwards.

I used to say when I was the High Commissioner here, that over the last 250 years, what do you think Britain's greatest achievement was? Well, I hope we can have that debate, it could be the Battle of Waterloo or holding out against the Nazis in 1940 against all odds, all sorts of things come to mind, but I say it was the creation of modern Australia which was the greatest British achievement in those 250 or so years. And some of you may not agree, but what I would say is this, it is hugely important to understand history. You can never understand a country – and I say this as a former foreign minister - you can never understand the country if you don't understand its history. If you don't understand the stories that people tell each other and are passed down through the generations, then you must understand the country's history. And to understand Australia, you have to understand the role Arthur Phillip played in the foundation of Modern Australia. Not the founding of Australia but the foundation of Modern Australia, and the values he brought to Australia, which are values that have set the pace for the country's evolution ever since.

I not only hope Australians will always honour Arthur Phillip but when I've asked people here if they have heard of Arthur Phillip, you guessed it, the answer is invariably "No". They wonder if he's number nine for Manchester United in the 1960's so yes, he needs to become better known here in this country. As one of the great pioneers of Britain and the Founder of Modern Australian. So, thank you all for coming today. It's wonderful to have this commemoration every year. I've participated in it several times in the past and long may you continue to recognise Admiral Arthur Phillip.