Friday, 15 August 2025
Kokoda Track Memorial Walkway, Concord West
Her Excellency the Honourable Margaret Beazley AC KC

I too acknowledge the Wangal People of the Eora Nation, Traditional Owners of the land on which we gather. In doing so, I pay my respects to their Elders past, present, and emerging. I extend that respect also to the Elders of all parts of our State from which you have travelled, and, on this day of commemoration, to First Nations people who have served, and continue to do so, with such distinction in our Defence Force.

I also make special acknowledgment of our Veterans of the Second World War, Mr Bruce Robertson and Mr Reg Chard, who are with us today.

Parliamentarians, State^[1] and Federal^[2]; senior representatives and members, past and present, of our Defence Force^[3]; members of the NSW Consular Corps^[4]; Commissioner^[5]; Mayor^[6], distinguished guests, all,

On the 8^th of December 1941, Australia’s Prime Minister John Curtin was woken by his press secretary with news of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbour.^[7]

A War Cabinet was convened, and in the evening, Prime Minister Curtin delivered a radio address to the nation from Melbourne, in which he announced Australia was at war with Japan, although a formal declaration would not be signed until the following day.^[8]

So began the Pacific War, a war of vital and existential importance to Australia. As Curtin said during his broadcast:

I say […] to the people of Australia: Give of your best in the service of this nation. […]  for the nation itself is in peril. This is our darkest hour. Let that be fully realized. Our efforts in the past two years must be as nothing compared with the efforts we must now put forward.^[9]

The ‘last two years’ was, of course, Australia’s involvement in the war in Europe, which began with Great Britain’s declaration of war against Germany following Hitler’s invasion of Poland in September 1939. As Prime Minister Robert Menzies had announced at the time, “Great Britain has declared war upon […] [Germany] and […] as a result, Australia is also at war.”^[10]

By late 1941, however, arrangements between Australia and Great Britain regarding the declaration of wars was changing. Three days before the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbour, Britain had declared war on Finland, Hungary, and Romania. However, unlike with declarations against Germany and, after that, Italy, Australia did not automatically follow Britain’s lead. Instead, the Curtin government formally advised the King to officially assign the power to declare war to Australia’s Governor-General, Lord Gowrie.

With the King’s assent for this immediately telegraphed back, at a meeting of the Federal Executive Council held the same day Curtin announced war with Japan, Australia formally declared war against the three German satellite states, the first time our nation had made such a declaration independently of Britain.^[11]

Now, this might seem a minor detail of constitutional history, but I raise it to illustrate an important point, the pivot in Australia’s outlook and identity the War in the Pacific would provoke and embody.

Curtin continued:

Men and women of Australia: The call is to you, for your courage; your physical and mental ability; your inflexible determination that we, as a nation of free people, shall survive. My appeal to you is in the name of Australia, for Australia is the stake in this conflict. The thread of peace has snapped—only the valour of our fighting Forces, backed by the very uttermost of which we are capable in factory and workshop, can knit that thread again into security. Let there be no idle hand. The road of service is ahead. Let us all tread it firmly, victoriously.^[12]

That road to victory would, of course, be long, arduous, and full of sacrifice.

Although alert to the possibility of Japanese expansion, British, American, Dutch, and Australian defences were unprepared for the scale, efficiency, and speed of the Japanese advance into Southeast Asia that had been launched simultaneously with their attack on Pearl Harbour.^[13]

Within five months, they had captured much of the Malay Peninsula, and nearly all the islands and archipelagos of modern-day Indonesia, Malaysia, and the Philippines.

Singapore had fallen, resulting in the capture of a huge Allied army, including more than 15,000 Australian soldiers, nearly half of whom would later die as prisoners of war.^[14] Three days later, Darwin was bombed, with the loss of more than 250 lives.^[15]

Australian outposts on the islands of Ambon, Timor, and Java to the west of New Guinea had been overrun, and to the east of that island, New Britain.^[16]

All that remained in Allied hands, the only chink in the increasingly solidifying Japanese arc of defence to our north, and possible launch pad to an invasion of Australia, was Port Moresby.

Japan’s first attempt to take Port Moresby, which was by sea, was thwarted in the Battle of the Coral Sea, the first aircraft carrier battle ever fought.^[17] The following month, in June, the pivotal battle of Midway saw further destruction of the Japanese Fleet, delimiting their control of the seas.^[18]

By late June, the Japanese were making plans to take Port Moresby by land, and, in July, landed at Guna on New Guinea’s north Coast, determined to advance over the rugged and treacherous track leading south. At Kokoda, high in the mountains, they met a small force of Australian citizen soldiers, particularly the Militia 39th Battalion; the Japanese troops, better equipped, more experienced, and more numerous, drove them back.^[19]

Australian reinforcements arrived up the track from the south, and, ordered to adopt a defensive stance to prevent the Japanese penetrating beyond Kokoda, dug in at Isurava. The Japanese, hoping to destroy the Australian forces before a counterattack on Kokoda or a retreat further into the mountains could occur, attacked.

Over six days of fighting, the Japanese eventually overran the Australians, who retreated, often by dispersing into the jungle and circling back to join up, further south.^[20]

The fear, the horrendous conditions, the disease, and the bravery during the Australian’s stand at Isurava—and indeed of the entire Kokoda Campaign—is captured vividly by the terse words scrawled by Private John Stewart Clarke^[21] in his diary:

Monday 24: Ears syringed out—still waiting—heavy rain and cold—still waiting—Mylola

Tuesday 25: Pushing on—heavy mud track—rain

Wednesday 26: Alola—pushing on ditto—muddy track—getting close up—scare at tea time—wet through all night—no dry clothes

Thursday 27: Isharava [Isurava]—Mary and Marg the game is on—hoping for the best—always thinking of home

Friday 28: Mr. Moore passed out—Bad Luck—1850 hours relieved

Saturday 29: Spell—bullets everywhere—hell on earth amongst the clouds in the mountains—retired—first dry night

Sunday 30: Waiting A, B + C—mistake—cut off

The Japanese were also encountering difficulties whilst attempting to take an allied airfield 200 miles east, in Milne Bay on the eastern tip of New Guinea.  Having underestimated the size of the Australian forces, and, after several days fighting in torrential rain, they were decisively forced back by Australian troops, often cited as the first Japanese land defeat of the war.^[22]

The tide was turning.

Meanwhile, back on the Kokoda Track, the Japanese were continuing their push south and, by late September, had come within sight of Port Moresby. With their supply line to the north running thin, however, and fears of overextending, the Imperial Headquarters ordered them to retreat.^[23]

The Australians followed them, and after a series of engagements, including an attempt by the Japanese to hold Templeton’s Crossing, by November the Australians could hoist a flag at Kokoda; in December they had taken Buna and Gona on the coast; and then, in January, the final Japanese foothold, Sanananda, was taken.^[24]

This ended the Papuan Campaign, but not the Pacific War. Although the Japanese advance had been lightning-fast, completely pushing them back would take years.

And so, we skip forward to 80 years ago today. Just before a quarter to nine in the morning, a codeword was flashed from the Australian High Commission in London to Government Offices in Canberra.

According to newspaper reports of the time, a Mr J L Mulrooney, Officer-in-Charge of the External Communications Section of the Department of External Affairs^[25], had been waiting for the previous 5 days and nights for the codeword to appear on his receiver.^[26]

It was the word ‘neon’—chosen because “it was the shortest possible word containing the least number of morse code signals which could be clearly understood”; it was also the official confirmation that Japan had surrendered.

10 minutes after receiving the message, Mr Mulrooney and the Prime Minister’s press secretary began hooking up every radio station in Australia to 2CY’s studio in Canberra; forty minutes later, Ben Chifley, who had been Prime Minister for little more than a month, following Curtin’s death in office, addressed Australians with the words they had waited for 6 long years:

Fellow citizens, the war is over ...

Impromptu celebrations had been occurring in Sydney since the previous Friday^[27], anticipating Japan’s imminent surrender. Immediately following the Prime Minister’s broadcast, the celebrations took on an unprecedented scale and pitch.

The newspapers of the day are full of descriptions of the rejoicing, the joy and elation, the photographs of happy faces, cheering crowds, and the almost endless rain of streamers and torn up papers flung from office windows.

There were also descriptions of more solemn and restrained reactions. In the Sydney Morning Herald, there appeared a small article boxed off from the rest. It read:

Amid the noise and excitement in Martin Place yesterday morning, a soldier in jungle green knelt in reverence in front of the Cenotaph. An elderly woman joined him immediately. It was not long before 12 women were kneeling around the soldier. They were all visibly affected, and some were weeping. The scene hushed the crowd.^[28]

Today is a day of ceremony, unaccompanied by the noise of elation that echoed 80 years ago today; what remains, though, is the deepest esteem we hold for those whose service, sacrifice, and valour made peace possible.

For their part in ending the global conflagration that brought war not only to our doorstep but onto our soil.

For embodying and building upon our deepest national ideals and identity.

We will remember them.

[1] Mr Jason Li MP, Member for Strathfield, Parliament of NSW; Mr Matt Cross MP, Member for Davidson, Parliament of NSW ; Ms Stephanie Di Pasqua MP, Member for Drummoyne, Parliament of NSW

[2] Ms Sally Sitou MP, Member for Reid, Parliament of Australia

[3] Commodore Anita Williams CSC CSM, RAN, Deputy Fleet Commander, representing Vice Admiral Mark Hammond, AO, RAN, Chief of Navy, Royal Australian Navy; Major General Matthew Burr AM, Commander 2^nd (Australian) Division, Office of the Chief of Army, representing Lieutenant General Simon Stuart, AO DSC, Chief of Army, Australian Army

Air Commodore Susie Barns, Deputy Air Commander Australia, representing Air Marshal Stephen Chappell DSC CSC OAM, Chief of Air Force, Royal Australian Air Force

[4] Mr James Munro, Consul-General, Consulate-General of New Zealand; Mrs Louise Cantillon, Consul-General, British Consulate-General; Ms Belgin Ergüneş, Consul-General, Consulate-General of the Republic of Türkiye; Mrs Milena De Gonzaga Soares Abrantes, Consul-General of the Democratic Republic of Timor-Leste

[5] Commissioner Gary McCahon, Corrective Services NSW

[6] Cr Michael Megna, Mayor, City of Canada Bay Council

[7] Maryanne Doyle, ‘Curtin Speech: Japan Enters Second World War’, National Film and Sound Archives website, available here

[8] Doyle, ‘Curtin Speech’, op. cit.; ‘Address to the Nation’, broadcast on the ABC, 8 December 1941; full transcript available here

[9] John Curtin, ‘Address to the Nation’, broadcast on the ABC, 8 December 1941; full transcript available here

[10] ‘1939 Declaration of War’, Menzies Virtual Museum website, available here

[11] Patrick Ferry and Darren Watson, ‘Declaration of Independence’, National Museum of Austrlaia website, 7 December 2021, available here

[12] John Curtin, ‘Address to the Nation’, broadcast on the ABC, 8 December 1941; full transcript available here

[13] Professor Peter Stanley, ‘War in the Pacific, 1942’, Anzac Memorial Hyde Park Sydney website, available here

[14] ‘Fall of Singapore’, National Museum of Australia website, available here

[15] ‘Bombing of Darwin’, Australian War Memorial website, available here

[16] The island of Ambon, defended by an Australian battalion group of about 1,100 men known as ‘Gull Force’, fell on 3 February 1942: ‘Fall of Ambon’, Australian Government Anzac Portal website, available here; the western parts of Timor, defended by around 1,400 Australians known as ‘Sparrow Force’, supported by small Dutch and Portuguese Garrisons, fell on 23 February 1942: ‘Fall of Timor’, Australian Government Anzac Portal website, available here; Java, defended by an assortment of Dutch colonial, British, Australian, and American forces, fell on 11 March 1942: ‘Fall of Java’, Australian Government Anzac Portal website, available here. Rabaul, formally the capital and administrative centre of the Australian Mandated Territory of New Guinea, located on the island of New Britain, and defended by around 1,330 Australians known as ‘Lark Force’, fell to the Japanese on 23 January 1942: ‘Fall of Rabaul’, Australian War Memorial website, available here

[17] ‘The Battle of the Coral Sea’, Anzac Day Commemoration Committee website, available here

[18] ‘Battle of Midway’, Australian War Memorial website, available here

[19] ‘Kokoda Trail’, National Museum of Australia website, available here

[20] ‘The Stand at Isurava’, Australian Government Anzac Portal website, available here

[21] ‘Document: Diary of Soldier on Kokoda Trail’, State Library of Victoria website, available here

[22] ‘Battle of Milne Bay’, Australian War Memorial website, available here

[23] ‘The Tide Turns’, Australian Government Anzac Portal website, available here

[24] ‘Sanananda’, Australian War Memorial website, available here

[25] Canberra Times, 16 August 1945, p. 4; available here

[26] Daily Telegraph 16 August 1945, p. 5; available here

[27] For instance: articles in the Sydney Morning Herald of Saturday 11 August, mentioning revellers spontaneously taking over Kings Cross on the evening of 10 August; available here. Also, crowds and music performances in Martin Place on the evening of the 14^th following a 4pm BBC broadcast announcing the Japanese would “soon issue a statement accepting Allied surrender terms”: Daily Telegraph, 15 August 1945, p. 2; available here; singing crowds and performances also around a 2UW stage set up in Martin Place: Sydney Morning Herald, 15 August 1945, p. 4; available here

[28] Sydney Morning Herald, 16 August 1945, p. 5; available here