Media Release 25 April 2005

NEW ZEALAND FULFILS ANZAC SPIRIT WITH
POLITICS OF PEACE AND INCLUSION

Extract from Anzac Memorial Address at Takapuna Grammar School
Bishop Richard Randerson, Dean of Holy Trinity Cathedral, Auckland

New Zealand today, while honouring the sacrifice of those who died at Gallipoli 90 years ago, plays a vital role in building a peaceful world through its politics of peace and inclusion. It thus makes a major contribution to the spirit of ANZAC in achieving peace and harmonious co-existence.

New Zealand is a small nation and hence does not fall into the trap of seeking to wield power over others. Rather it makes a more sober assessment of its role as a team-player in peace-building, committing peace-keeping forces to the world’s trouble spots, and resources for reconstruction in the aftermath of natural disasters.

Commitment to constructive partnerships under the Treaty of Waitangi, and building an inclusive multi-cultural society, are further ingredients in the recipe for national and global peace.

We live today in an age when international travel and global communications help us see that war means not just the loss of life of New Zealanders, but of people on the other side as well, as in Turkey in 1915. We no longer see them as enemies, but as members of the one human family whose aspirations to live life to the full, surrounded by family and friends, are no different from ours.

Young people who leave our shores, as doctors, teachers, engineers and agricultural workers, to engage in the war against poverty and disease make their contribution to peace just as surely as the veterans of Gallipoli.

On Anzac Day we honour the dead, and share the grief of those who mourn for them. We also commit ourselves to continue in the paths of peace, that swords may be beaten into plough-shares, and the sounds of war no longer heard on the face of this Earth.

ENDS

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