ANZAC Day provides us with the privilege to reflect on the legacy of our ANZACs and their service to our nation. 

In the cold, pre-dawn dark of April 25, 1915, more than 16,000 men from the Australian and New Zealand Army Corp gathered in preparation for landing on the Gallipoli Peninsula. 

Forged in the horror of this tragedy, a legacy was born that would reshape our nation, the legacy of the ANZACs. 

I was honoured to speak at the Applecross RSL dawn service on April 25, 2024, it was wonderful to see our community come together to commemorate our ANZACs and to show respect or those who have served, and for those who continue to serve.

Many of us have a family link to our ANZAC's, their loss reverberates across generations.

I also had the privilege of addressing Applecross Senior High School students. 

I encouraged them to think about our ANZACs as ordinary, ordinary young men, and women in the course of later conflicts. Going about their lives, enjoying the same things we enjoy today, working, studying, building families and living in our community. My purpose in asking our young people to consider our ANZACs in this context, was to encourage them to make real those events of nearly 110 years ago. 

It was to understand that what happened in Gallipoli was, and is, something more than a historic event. We can reflect on how courage and mate ship can and does exist in the everyday - that is to say, in the ordinary, in those who would never consider themselves to be brave or extraordinary. 

We will remember the price paid by those who served; but also, by the loved ones who never again saw their sons, brothers, husbands, fathers and friends. 

Like our ANZACs, we are our best in the service of each other, this is perhaps their ultimate legacy. 

Lest We Forget.