Winston Peters seemingly borrowed heavily from one of history’s most famous speeches when making his own Anzac Day address at Gallipoli.  

The Deputy Prime Minister was widely praised for calling for peace and diplomacy during Thursday’s dawn service in Turkey.  

He urged the world to remember the fallen soldiers from World War I’s bloody Gallipoli campaign in which more than 100,000 Kiwi, Aussie and allied soldiers died attacking Turkish-held positions. 

“We meet at dawn at the site of a great battlefield,” Peters said in the early morning darkness at Anzac Cove. 

“We meet here to commemorate the ground around us as the final resting place of far too many of our young men.” 

The message harked closely back to former US president Abraham Lincoln’s famous words from more than 150 years ago. 

“We are met on a great battlefield of that war,” Lincoln said in 1863 at Gettysburg Cemetery during the American Civil War. 

“We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting-place for those who here gave their lives.” 

Later in his speech, Peters then said: “We must leave this ground dedicated to making our worlds better. Then the men buried here will not have died in vain.” 

Lincoln’s speech records him saying: “It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us ... that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain.” 

Winston Peters looks at a painting of the Battle of Gettysburg during a visit to a museum in Gettysburg, the United States, in 2018. 

The two examples were among a number of parallel phrases and sentiments running through both speeches. 

Peters did not mention Lincoln during his speech or give any indication he was referencing the former president’s famous address. 

A spokesman for Peters said “the Gallipoli speech follows a classic form” and that the Deputy PM helped craft it. 

That involved “commemoration, consecration, and the responsibility left for the living, all to give meaning to the sacrifice of those who perished on the battlefield”. 

“The minister was very hands on in all aspects of the Dawn Address, utilising his wide knowledge of history and historical speeches/eulogies, including the Gettysburg Address.” 

Peters and one of his speech writers Jon Johansson are both known to have spoken about Gettysburg and the Gettysburg Address before. 

Johansson wrote a piece for the Herald in 2003, citing the speech as one of the great examples of rhetoric – or persuasive oratory. 

‘Embarrassing’ or inspiring? 

Peters’ decision to liberally sprinkle inspiration and phrases from Lincoln’s address into his own speech has drawn a mixed reception from experts in plagiarism and history. 

Some labelled it embarrassing, while others thought it clever and moving. 

Professor Stephen Marshall, an expert in learning and plagiarism from Victoria University of Wellington, believed that, far from plagiarising the speech, Peters was deliberately evoking its symbolism “in order to align himself with that narrative, that message”. 

“I don’t think he or anyone in his speech writing team would have expected anyone to not realise that he was using direct references to the speech.” 

Marshall said Lincoln’s speech had become so famous that you didn’t have to tell your audience when referencing it because they most likely already knew. 

He said Peters’ decision to use the speech “resonated”, especially when he and Lincoln talk about the living honouring the sacrifices of the dead by working hard to make the world better. 

“His selection of that last piece of text about the unfinished work, I think he’s making a more important point, which is that a democratic society is a work in progress for each generation,” Marshall said. 

People gather prior to a dawn service ceremony at the Anzac Cove beach. Photo / AP 

“I think he’s drawing an analogy ... that this is not something where you get to rest on the sacrifice of earlier generations and just take it all for granted.” 

Peters’ speech also included comments that “we live in a troubled world, the worst in memory”. 

Marshall thought Peters’ use of Lincoln’s address could allude to the challenges and division America is currently having in its own democracy. 

And while the Civil War was a fight between internal states in a country, it could also reflect a bigger warning about conflict between nation states. 

Associate history professor Peter Field from the University of Canterbury said Peters and Lincoln’s broader point was moving. 

They both ask what do we owe to people who died so we can enjoy our comfortable and free lives now. 

“I think that’s the way, the way to commemorate those who have died is by doing good things now, not just by a morning vigil on the 25th of April, but by what you do on the 26th, 27th and 28th of April,” he said. 

Field said Lincoln’s speech had been hailed as “wonderful” and “wondrous” because, despite the Civil War still raging at the time of his address, the statesman didn’t say “I” once. 

Instead in his 252-word address, he said “we” 10 times. It was a technique Peters emulated in his own speech. 

Still, Field thought it was jarring that Peters didn’t mention Lincoln by name during the talk, given he referenced the former US president’s speech so often. 

People were gathered in the dark as the dawn ceremony at Anzac Cove, Turkey, got under way. Photo / AP 

He said he’d never seen someone call on Lincoln’s speech so liberally without referencing it before. 

Heather Kavan, a senior lecturer who teaches courses in speech writing at Massey University, went further to call it “embarrassing”. 

“It is really embarrassing, it is definitely a speaker’s nightmare for a writer to hand them a speech with copied sentences in it,” she said. 

She said all Peters had to do in the speech was add in a phrase like: “As Lincoln said ...” or “Like Lincoln, I think this ...”. 

Failure to properly cite inspirations has landed many public talkers in trouble before, she said. 

Melania Trump, the wife of former US president Donald Trump, was famously accused in 2016 of plagiarising a speech by another president’s wife Michelle Obama. 

Current US President Joe Biden has also been accused of plagiarising the words of a former British politician, Neil Kinnock. 

Passages in question: 

Winston Peters – 2024 

We meet at dawn at the site of a great battlefield. We meet here to commemorate the ground around us as the final resting place of far too many of our young men. 

Abraham Lincoln – 1863 

We are met on a great battlefield of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. 

Peters 

We meet at dawn to commemorate the terrible loss of so many lives, yet we cannot hallow these grounds. The men who died here have already made sacred the ground upon which we come every 25th of April. 

Lincoln 

In a larger sense, we can not dedicate – we can not consecrate – we can not hallow – this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. 

Peters 

But standing here at Gallipoli, our words matter less than their deeds. We will never forget what they did here. 

Lincoln 

The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. 

Peters 

Yet we live in a troubled world, the worst in memory. We have emerged from a global pandemic a more divided world. Regional instabilities and the chaos they create threaten the security of too many. 

Lincoln 

Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. 

Peters 

But we must all come together, as people and as nations, to do more to honour those who paid with their lives. We must protect and care for our young. We must reject and resist those who seek to conquer and control. We must always seek the path of peace. Then, and only then, will the men buried here not have died in vain. 

Lincoln 

It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us – that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion – that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain – that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom – and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth. 

Ben Leahy is an Auckland-based journalist covering property. He has worked as a journalist for more than a decade in India, Australia and New Zealand. 

This article was originally published on the NZ Herald here.