Common values for a nation born without violence

Never before have a group of self-governing, practically independent communities, without external pressure or foreign complications of any kind, deliberately chosen of their own free will to put aside their provincial jealousies and come together as one people, from a simple intellectual and sentimental conviction of the folly of disunion and the advantages of nationhood.

The States of America, of Switzerland, of Germany, were drawn together under the shadows of war. Even the Canadian provinces were forced to unite by the neighbourhood of a great foreign power. But the Australian Commonwealth, the fifth great Federation of the world, came into voluntary being through a deep conviction of national unity.

We may well be proud of the statesmen who constructed a Constitution which whatever may be its faults and its shortcomings has proved acceptable to a large majority of the people of five great communities scattered over a continent; and proud of a people who, without the compulsion of war or the fear of conquest, have succeeded in agreeing upon the terms of a binding and indissoluble Social Compact.

The preamble to the Constitution Act the British Parliament passed to give effect to our constitution - with some minor changes - expresses the nature of that compact. It recites that the people of the several states, “… humbly relying on the blessings of Almighty God, have agreed to unite in an indissoluble Federal Commonwealth under the Crown … and under the Constitution hereby established.”

Those words set out the essence of our federation, which was truly the success story of the 20th century. This is the context of our nation. Just as the United States was formed and still lives under its constitution, so the Australian nation lives under and still operates under the pillars of our nation which include our constitutional system.

The values which flow from the six pillars of our nation remain relevant today. They are the creeds which Australians have long held and should continue to hold today.