Monday 17th December 2001

Cynicism about politics and democratic institutions has never been higher, but Australia's celebration of its centenary of Federation did something the cynics never expected - it worked. The Federation year acted as a wake-up call for an Australian public that knew too little about our nation's history and spirit. Most importantly, it inspired many ordinary Australians to participate in public life. 

On a purely practical level, in 2001 we had record community involvement in events as diverse as the moving Yeperenye Federation Festival of Aboriginal communities in Alice Springs (the nation's largest-ever tribal gathering) through to a special national youth conference in Perth. It has also left Australia with an endowment of new infrastructure, such as the National Museum in Canberra.

The year's positive legacy is well measured by the genuine enthusiasm people showed when offered the chance to participate in one of the centenary events, projects or forums. In Melbourne it was the commemoration on May 9 of the Australian Parliament's first sitting that captivated the nation, and the newly restored Royal Exhibition Building had one of its finest moments. Earlier in the year, more than 500,000 people lined Sydney streets to experience the January 1 parade in glorious sunshine, with many more watching on TV.

Small and remote regions also voted with their feet. In outback Charleville, Queensland, a crowd larger than the town's population turned up for the barnstorming Federation Airshow. In Kalgoorlie, you could not find space to move when the Prospectors and Miners Hall of Fame was opened as a central part of their celebrations.

On a more cerebral level, there was the stunning success of the Deakin and Barton Lectures, with their capacity audiences in Melbourne and Sydney respectively. They proved beyond doubt that today's citizens have a thirst for knowledge. People wanted to use the centenary year to learn, to join in debate and to chart a new course.

At a time when Australia suffers from a diet of "reality" TV and often superficial talkback radio, these Federation forums provided a long-overdue meeting place for thousands of people with ideas and opinions. This experience provided the first major lesson of the Federation year: people are tired of set-piece political combat, but have a hunger for information on issues. The bodies that can organise these forums - such as our great universities - must now move to host regular, high-level civic dialogues. If they do, people will come in their thousands.

It was the wish that the year would work on all levels that drove the National Council for the Centenary of Federation, the 17-member board established by the Council of Australian Governments to run the 2001 program. We believed the celebration had to engage and help educate people.

And it had to tackle the new century just as much as the previous one. There would be festivals and parades, but there had to be much more. Both the highlights and the shortcomings of our past needed to be canvassed. This resulted in Federation forums and projects airing issues such as the treatment of indigenous Australians, the future of our constitutional monarchy and the notorious white Australia policy. All part of a real debate, rightly occurring under the Federation banner.

The celebrations also had to be truly national in style, unlike the 1988 Bicentenary, which had been remembered by most Australians as a costly "Sydney-centric" event. The Bicentenary's disproportionate focus on one capital city, let alone its more depressing failure to respect Aboriginal heritage, would not be repeated.

So the centenary program was progressively put in place, with multipartisan political support. The first task was tackling the lamentable level of public knowledge about Federation, constitutional history and even the people who had been elected to lead our nation. Ignorance of our past was unfortunately accompanied by apathy. Of those who did know how leaders such as Edmund Barton and Alfred Deakin worked to create a nation, most simply took it for granted.

We put in place a plan to build a mosaic of public involvement, with a strategy of moving the national spotlight around Australia throughout the year. More than a dozen evocative major events were organised to commemorate Federation, with at least one in each state and territory. Adelaide ran a weeklong showcase of Australian innovators, and Darwin presented a stunning tribute to those who had died in the defence of our country.

Schools were targeted for their immediate involvement and as a longer-term investment, to broaden the understanding of our nation's birth. This may even lead to today's children learning as much about highlights of Australian history as yesterday's children learnt about the American Civil War and the Bayeux Tapestry!

The early signs that Federation planning was bearing fruit came after the Prime Minister's launch of the Centenary program in late 2000. The Australian public, still moved by the euphoria of our sporting and organisational victories at the Olympics, seemed to like the themes they were hearing about our nation and its founders. They warmed to the fact that 2001 was "the country's 100th birthday".

We knew, of course, that most people would participate directly in only a few elements of the Federation year, so it was the collective impact of the celebrations that counted. What was the outcome? The public's understanding of our nation's history and its character has risen remarkably. Research for the National Council records a complete turnaround in public knowledge of Federation. Community awareness of the federation story soared from 27 per cent in 1997, when the first research was done, to 87 per cent by late 2001.

This provides the second substantial lesson of the Federation year: Australians have a real interest in their heritage, and ignorance or ambivalence about our nation's challenges and achievements can be corrected when citizens gain fresh information and are encouraged to be inquisitive.

With this in mind, the decentralised centrepiece events were designed to be both captivating and educational.

Fittingly, the first commemorative event was conducted by indigenous Australia - the New Dawn ceremony in central Australia - as were the opening programs in all capital cities. This involvement by the first Australians was fundamental, playing a welcome role in the reconciliation process. The National Council was especially keen to have a focus in 2001 on Aboriginal communities, taking up the suggestion of one of its then-members, Peter Hollingworth (then Anglican Archbishop of Brisbane, now Governor-General) to initiate an unprecedented indigenous gathering in the heart of Australia.

For many, the strongest memories of the Federation year will be the local ones, particularly those that connected communities. Like the way remote townships along the length of the Murray River embraced the Source-to-the-Sea flotilla. Or the web-based Connecting The Continent event, which received a staggering 3.3 million hits in a single month.

No matter how small or large, the centenary celebrations would not have come together without the Federal-State partnership that the National Council had conceived.

This is the third major lesson. Although our nation will always struggle with the impact of geographic rivalry and political differences of opinion, we should not lose faith in the potential for developing solutions and programs that rise above these points of difference. It was support for "the national interest" that produced thousands of constructive Federation projects - much as, with a similar spirit, towns and cities united in the late 1890s to assert a national vision.

So what will be the lasting impact of the centenary program? As one of the celebration's architects has commented, "the year gave us cause to rescue the Federation period from a long passage of appalling neglect". It also deepened the understanding of our national institutions and produced increased involvement in their operation.

Not everyone agrees, of course: one Sydney tabloid columnist argued that "no one gives a stuff" about Federation: another criticised the organisers for being "triumphalist". Such opinions were a welcome part of the Centenary dialogue, but the latter was particularly inaccurate. The 2001 program deliberately catered for people with contrary views on both our past and our future, and it reflected the way the federation process was being lauded by almost every community leader, constitutional lawyer and historian in the nation.

For me, the Centenary program accomplished its mission by touching Australians from all parts of the country. Many learnt for the first time how a national democracy had been peacefully created. Others gained hope about tackling equally great challenges in the decades ahead.

Without any sense of false nationalism, indeed with all the understated style you expect of our country, the Federation year was a success.

Speaking to the Motion: "That this joint sitting of the Legislative Council and Legislative Assembly of the Parliament of Victoria invites the President and members of the Senate and the Speaker and members of the House of Representatives to convene at the Royal Exhibition Buildings, Carlton, on 9 May 2001, for the joint commemorative ceremonial Federation sitting and commemoration ceremony and at Parliament House, Melbourne, on 10 May 2001 for the commemorative Federation sitting of each house of the commonwealth Parliament and conveys its best wishes for the success of the said meetings that will mark the centenary of the first sittings of the Parliament of the Commonwealth of Australia."

There are two profound reasons for supporting the motion before the joint sitting, which starts the formal process of recognising the achievements from 1901 to 2001.

The first profound reason is that the achievement of 1901 is a largely unrecognised part of Australian history, particularly among young Australians. By world standards the action of six colonies coming together to create one nation for one continent was a historic event. Because it was not done on the back of bloodshed or any form of violence, it has gone largely unrecognised for the achievement it was.

Other nations have achieved their nationhood as a result of civil war, of internal insurrection or as the outcome of some form of territorial fight that led to a form of national unity.

By way of contrast, in 1901, quietly, peacefully and with a great degree of selfless detachment, the Australian people decided that six colonies should go and that they should create one nation - and in that context, we can be proud of that title.

Despite the extraordinary simplicity of Australia at that time there was a pursuit of unity. Australia then had a population of fewer than 4 million, and there were only 50 motor cars across the whole country. It had no radios, let alone television, and no proper transport links because all the rail links were of different gauges!

But there was idealism, vision, a sense of determination to work as one and the first indications of a sense of nationhood.

As a consequence, Australia saw a process of consultation that is rare by any standards of democracy. In Victoria, 94 per cent of people voted in favour of a Federation; no state had a higher positive vote. But that was a rare moment and it is a rare moment that we should start to celebrate from today. As Alfred Deakin said in reflecting on the events that led to today:

It was a miracle, and that is what we celebrate. The consultation was a success and should be a beacon for all of us.

The second profound reason that we must support the celebration is that 2001 offers a rare opportunity for inclusiveness, for bringing the nation together for a genuine celebration and as a period in which to reconcile our differences.

At a time when the relevance of celebrations like Australia Day are slipping away, 2001 offers the symbols and the substance for the nation to work together as one.

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