{"id":628964,"date":"2026-04-25T00:57:27","date_gmt":"2026-04-25T00:57:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/628964\/"},"modified":"2026-04-25T00:57:27","modified_gmt":"2026-04-25T00:57:27","slug":"prime-minister-joins-thousands-gathered-at-australian-war-memorial-to-commemorate-anzac-day","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/628964\/","title":{"rendered":"Prime Minister joins thousands gathered at Australian War Memorial to commemorate Anzac Day"},"content":{"rendered":"

Tens of thousands have gathered before sunrise at the Australian War Memorial in Canberra for Anzac Day, commemorating the 111th anniversary of the Gallipoli landings.<\/p>\n

The dawn service began with a didgeridoo performance by Wiradjuri man and Flight Lieutenant James Evans before the crowd participated in a hymn.<\/p>\n

Up to 35,000 people attended the ceremony, according to the War Memorial, with wreaths laid by Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and the New Zealand High Commissioner, Andrew Needs.<\/p>\n

Since the Anzacs fought alongside one another in Turkey during World War I, experiencing high casualties, April 25 has come to represent a bond between the two nations.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

A crowd watches on at the dawn service in Canberra. (ABC News: Matt Roberts)<\/p>\n

‘My bags are always packed’<\/p>\n

The commemorative address was given by Flying Officer Kbora Ali of the Royal Australian Air Force, whose family fled Afghanistan when she was a child.<\/p>\n

“In 2001, in the early hours of the morning, a tiny wooden boat in the Indian Ocean was on the verge of sinking,” her speech began.<\/p>\n

She said the boat was slammed down “onto the unforgiving water” and those on board, including children, “didn’t have much time left”.<\/p>\n

“Water was quickly filling up the broken boat and there was no land in sight,” she said.<\/p>\n

“Among the people that our courageous Navy personnel saved from that sinking boat was my father, who risked his life to try and find us safety.<\/p>\n

“I didn’t see my father for many years \u2014 our family wasn’t together much during my childhood.”<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

Flying Officer Kbora Ali speaks at the Anzac Day dawn service in Canberra. (ABC News: Matt Roberts)<\/p>\n

She said when she was 18 years old and her family was “living comfortably in Australia”, she left home and went on to join the military.<\/p>\n

“Now I am the one who is never home, my bags are always packed,” she said.<\/p>\n

“This is the kind of sacrifice that men and women of the Australian Defence Force make every single day.<\/p>\n

“They do this so that other families can be spared the suffering and separation that occurs when home is no longer a safe place to stay.”<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

Anthony Albanese attended the Anzac Day dawn service alongside his wife Jodie Haydon. (ABC News: Matt Roberts)<\/p>\n

Now an aviator, Flying Officer Ali said she gets to “carry the hope and now the promise to give back to a place I now call home”.<\/p>\n

The long ‘legacy’ of the Anzacs<\/p>\n

Flying Officer Ali spoke of the meaning of Anzac Day and the courage shown by those who were in Gallipoli in 1915.<\/p>\n

“We acknowledge that we can only serve on this journey because of their legacy and sacrifices,” she said.\"A<\/p>\n

A child in the crowd at the Canberra dawn service. (ABC News: Matt Roberts)<\/p>\n

She said that in times of war and conflict, “our guiding principle should always be as those of the Anzacs before us, to uphold the values we cherish as Australians”.<\/p>\n

“And through our actions to always honour the sacrifices of all our personnel and their families, with an unwavering commitment to the preservation of peace,” she said.<\/p>\n

Smoking ceremony and march follow<\/p>\n

Later in the morning, a commemorative ceremony was held in the Sculpture Garden to honour Indigenous Australians who have served.<\/p>\n

The ceremony was held in front of the For Our Country memorial, a sculpture created by artist Daniel Boyd.<\/p>\n

\"Smoke<\/p>\n

A smoking ceremony was held in the war memorial’s Sculpture Garden. (ABC News: Matt Roberts)<\/p>\n

It was designed to invite reflection, with light filtering through its glass lenses.<\/p>\n

The service included a smoking ceremony, and wreaths were laid, with ACT Senator David Pocock among those present.<\/p>\n

After 9:30am, more than 1,800 people participated in the veterans’ march, held along Anzac Parade in front of the war memorial.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

Governor-General Sam Mostyn attended the Anzac Day veterans’ march in Canberra.\u00a0 (ABC News: Matt Roberts)<\/p>\n

The Governor-General, Sam Mostyn, was in attendance, along with ACT Chief Minister Andrew Barr, Shadow Defence Minister James Paterson, and former prime minister Tony Abbott.<\/p>\n

The march began with a fly-past by an F-35 Joint Strike Fighter aircraft and a guard of honour made up of first, second and third-year midshipmen and officer cadets from the Australian Defence Force Academy.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

Defence personnel at the Canberra Anzac Day veterans’ march. (ABC News: Matt Roberts)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Tens of thousands have gathered before sunrise at the Australian War Memorial in Canberra for Anzac Day, commemorating…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":628965,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[2666,13048,304838,2324,85102,23285,64,63,81,2667,6901,299741,1300,304837,77550,108105,2668,295972,38675,1736,44,5265,940,6900,295711,32619,66046,273706],"class_list":{"0":"post-628964","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-australia","8":"tag-act","9":"tag-air-force","10":"tag-andrew-needs","11":"tag-anthony-albanese","12":"tag-anzac-day","13":"tag-army","14":"tag-au","15":"tag-australia","16":"tag-australian","17":"tag-canberra","18":"tag-conflict","19":"tag-dawn-service","20":"tag-death","21":"tag-didgeridoo","22":"tag-gallipoli","23":"tag-heroes","24":"tag-local-stories","25":"tag-matt-anderson","26":"tag-navy","27":"tag-new-zealand","28":"tag-news","29":"tag-service","30":"tag-turkey","31":"tag-war","32":"tag-war-memorial","33":"tag-world-war-2","34":"tag-world-war-ii","35":"tag-ww2"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/628964","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=628964"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/628964\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/628965"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=628964"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=628964"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=628964"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}