You have set a standard of strength and decency: Tony Abbott thanks the soldiers of WW2.

The Prime Minister addressed the old Diggers last night in Brisbane, from where General Douglas MacArthur had overseen the Allied war in the Pacific.

‘You never let the grim necessities of war harden your hearts or misshape your characters… You rose to the challenge of war and you rose again to the challenge of peace, and all of us are your beneficiaries.’

Mr Abbott said the veterans and other volunteers had fulfilled King George VI’s call for his Commonwealth subjects ‘to restore what has been lost and establish peace’.

Report from Sky News here.