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From the Archives, 1996: Clinton says thanks to 'a remarkable nation'
US President Bill Clinton and his wife Hillary landed in Sydney for a brief visit. Before rushing off to play golf with Greg Norman, the President charmed a crowd of 4,000 at Lady Macquarie's Chair.
By John Huxley
First published in the Sydney Morning Herald on November 22, 1996
The guests of honour were, of course, American. But the occasion was quintessentially Australian, as more than 4,000 people gathered at Mrs Macquarie's Chair yesterday to hear President Bill Clinton thank Sydney for its warm hospitality during his brief visit.
President Clinton and Hillary Clinton leave the stage at Mrs Macquarie's Chair, November 1996.Credit: Rick Stevens
A timely sun shone; the police band played Waltzing Matilda, and the crowd created a happy, picnic atmosphere. All this against a striking backdrop of harbour, bridge and Opera House. It was great prime-time television for the estimated 32 million worldwide viewers. It was wonderful publicity for the city earlier described by the Prime Minister, Mr Howard, as "the oldest, most fantastic, most colourful, most diverse city in Australia".
It was an endorsement difficult for Mr Clinton to beat. But he did his best, reminding his audience how American writer Mark Twain, who visited Australia almost a century ago, had compared Sydney favourably to his own home-town, Little Rock, Arkansas.
"This is a remarkable community and a remarkable nation," an increasingly hoarse Mr Clinton went on, paying tribute to Australians as diverse as Patrick White and Peter Weir, Joan Sutherland and pop group Silverchair.
He looked forward to returning to Sydney for the 2000 Olympics if only, he joked, as valet for his wife Hillary, who had yesterday morning asked for the job of official US representative to the Games.
The Clintons shopping in the Rocks on November 21, 1996.Credit: Andrew Taylor
"I cannot think of a better place in the entire world, a more shining example, of how people can come together as one nation and one community than Sydney, Australia," he said.
If the city could live by the Olympic ideals, which gave all peoples the opportunity to live out their dreams, "it will stand as a beacon of hope for all that everyone who lives on the face of the Earth can become in this great new century", he said.
Earlier, Mr Howard had received prolonged applause when, in an otherwise pedestrian speech, he singled out the contribution of Asian immigrants to Australia.
"These people have given a particular vitality and a particular lustre ... and they provide a particularly valuable link to the region, to whose future we together are so bound up with," he said.
By the end of the speeches, Mr Clinton was running late for his long-awaited game of golf with Greg Norman and wife Hillary was preparing to dash across to the drama theatre of the Opera House to deliver a speech on women in the 21st century.
But much to the delight of the crowd gathered at the Fleet Steps, where the Queen had first set foot in February 1954, the couple found time to press still more Sydney flesh.