State dinner toast – The White House
Well, thank you very much to Mr President and First Lady Dr Biden.
I must say, I only have one regret about tonight, which is – I’m not quite sure how I top this for date night with Jodie at anytime, anywhere in the future.
It’s all downhill from here, my darling.
Ladies and gentlemen.
We live in a world that does keep changing. Yet one thing that keeps the ground firm beneath us is the great constant that is the American spirit.
America has never been held back by the unknown or slowed by trepidation.
You stride boldly towards the future, excited by all of its possibility.
In every field of human endeavour, your nation is energised by a ceaseless curiosity and the confidence to follow it.
It is a spirit that Australians identify with. With a small population but a very big imagination, we punch above our weight – all the while drawing inspiration from our friends across the Pacific.
We stand as close as we have ever been.
And I think, after this week, closer than we have ever been.
We are firm allies, strengthening defence cooperation through AUKUS, and creating more economic opportunities for our peoples and our region.
Australians are always ready to play our part.
Most importantly, our nations are close friends. Friends who admire each other’s qualities.
I think we get each other.
And President Biden and I had our first meeting before I’d even selected, of course, a Cabinet.
I was elected on the Saturday and by Monday I was off to the Quad Leaders’ meeting.
And I do want to thank the President for your warm welcome and that rather extraordinary beginning on the front foot in those first days of my Government.
Friends who draw strength from all we have in common, but we take joy in our differences as well.
Friends who look to the future together without losing sight of the moments in the past that bind us together.
Mr President, speaking as one man with Irish ancestry to another – although I am also, of course, half Italian, so you don’t have to guess my religion – I know you won’t object to me quoting a Dubliner.
The familiar words of William Butler Yeats – “Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold” – are now more than a century old.
Yet they speak to us just as clearly now as the long contest between democracy and authoritarianism plays out its newest chapter.
But to capture the essence of the bond between our two nations – in all of its warmth and its easy strength – I turn to another of his poems.
Think where man’s glory most begins and ends
And say my glory was I had such friends
So allow me to make a toast to such friends.
Because Australia has no greater friend than the United States of America.
So, to the President and First Lady.
To the history our peoples have made together.
But, importantly, the future we will build together as a peoples.
To friendship.