Anzac Day 2023: dawn services across Australia and New Zealand – in pictures

From seaside suburbs to city centres, thousands pack services to remember their defence comrades, relatives and countrymen who died in wars

Main image: The Last Post is played at the Shrine of Remembrance at the Anzac Day dawn service in Melbourne on Tuesday. Photograph: Asanka Ratnayake/Getty Images

Mon 24 Apr 2023 19.48 EDT

  • Surf life-saving club members hold oars for a symbolic burial at sea during the Anzac Day dawn service at Currumbin on the Gold Coast.

  • A war veteran stands by the eternal fire during the Anzac Day dawn service in Melbourne. The Melbourne Symphony Orchestra Chorus and the navy band belted out the New Zealand and Australian national anthems as dawn broke over the city.

  • An estimated 20,000 people gathered for the dawn service at Elephant Rock and extended south down Currumbin beach.

  • A piper plays at Elephant Rock at Currumbin.

  • People attend the Anzac Day dawn service at the Auckland War Memorial Museum. Across New Zealand, thousands spent their morning at dozens of dawn services, held from Kaitaia in the north to Invercargill in the south.

  • A father adjusts a red poppy on his son’s jacket in Melbourne.

  • Flags fly at Elephant Rock at Currumbin beach on the Gold Coast. Each year the local surf life-saving club launches boats to spread the ashes of servicemen and women who have died within the past year.

  • Melburnians brave the chilly morning to mark the 108th anniversary of the landings at Gallipoli.

  • Servicepeople take part in the Anzac Day dawn service at Elephant Rock on the Gold Coast.

  • The Shrine of Remembrance in Melbourne. This year marks the 70th anniversary of the end of the Korean War where over 17,000 Australians served and more than 300 were killed.

  • Members of the public attend an Anzac Day dawn ceremony in Brisbane.

  • A poppy graces the uniform of a New Zealand soldier during the dawn service at Sydney’s Martin Place.

  • Members of the New Zealand defence force during the dawn service at the Civic Centre in Upper Hutt, New Zealand.

  • A member of the catafalque party stands guard at Martin Place, Sydney, for NSW’s longest-running dawn service.

  • Anthony Albanese delivers his first commemorative Anzac Day address as prime minister at the Australian War Memorial in Canberra.

  • A haka is performed at the dawn service in Auckland.

  • Medals adorn the uniform of an Australian soldier in Sydney. Thousands gathered from George Street to Castlereagh Street as hymns, anthems and poems continued the 96-year tradition around the cenotaph.

  • A war veteran at the service at the Martin Place cenotaph. Diplomats from Belgium, the United Kingdom, Canada and Turkey were among those to lay wreaths.

  • Aucklanders attend the Anzac Day dawn service.

  • People lay poppies at the Stone of Remembrance at the top of the shrine following the conclusion of the dawn service in Melbourne.
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