[Click here to go directly to the Uniform Resolution text]
Following the public meeting on 10 January 1916 which raised the ANZAC Day Commemoration Committee of Queensland, the first full meeting of that citizens’ gift of the people on 18 February approved a plan of observance which included:
That in the evening a public meeting be held in every town in Queensland, when the events of the day shall be brought before the people, a resolution submitted at every such meeting; and simultaneously throughout the State during the meetings, every person and all work come to a standstill for a period of one minute at 9 pm in honour of our fallen heroes.
The one minute’s sacred silence has endured - though not necessarily at 9 pm. In Brisbane’s ANZAC Square each 25 April, the largest commemorative gathering in Queensland recites an updated resolution in two segments as part of its post march service. However, this element of the original protocol of the ANZAC commemoration has generally fallen by the wayside in most communities.
It is the fervent hope of the Executive Committee of the ADCC that by bringing this omission to the attention of our readers, they will insist that their local organisers reinsert this protocol back into its rightful place in the ANZAC commemorative ceremonies for the year 2000.
The Committee’s version of the Uniform Resolution is shown below.
Arthur Burke
Honorary Secretary ADCC
Uniform Resolution
- This meeting reaffirms its admiration of the magnificent heroism, self-sacrifice and endurance of the Sailors, Soldiers, Airmen and Nursing Sisters of Australia and New Zealand who, on the first ANZAC Day and throughout the Great War of 1914–18, conferred a glory on Australia and New Zealand that will never fade.
- This Meeting avers that the lofty ideals of service of the ANZACs pervaded the dauntless spirit of Australia’s gallant sons and daughters who, during a period of six years of fierce and intensive warfare on land, on sea, and in the air, from 1939 to 1945 gave such heroic and self-sacrificing service in the cause of liberty; and the same lofty ideals of service were exemplified in Korea, Malaya, Borneo, Vietnam and every other place around the globe where peacekeeping, peacemaking and the fight against terrorism take our servicemen and women.
- This Meeting voices its heartfelt sympathy with the relatives of those who, during these wars and conflicts, made the supreme sacrifice, and with those who have suffered on behalf of the Commonwealth.
- The Meeting gives its assurance that those who have fallen shall be held in sacred memory, and that those who have survived the perils of war will ever be honoured and remembered with gratitude by the people whose hearths and homes they went forth to save so that our freedom and our free institutions under the Commonwealth of Nations might survive.
- On the ......th anniversary of the immortal landings at Gallipoli, this Meeting of Citizens of ......................... expresses its loyalty and devotion to the person of His Majesty King Charles III and to the Commonwealth of Nations.