VETERANS Affairs Minister Warren Swowdon has urged all Australians to wear a red poppy with pride on Remembrance Day today.

Mr Snowdon said funds from the RSL Poppy Day Appeal are used to assist former and current defence personnel and their families in times of crisis, illness or distress.

He said red poppies had long been a symbol of Remembrance Day, since poppies grew across the vast battlefields of the First World War.

Mr Snowdon said 94 years after the guns fell silent on The Western Front, it was important people remembered the more than 60,000 Australians who died in the war, and those who have died since and those who continued to risk their lives in the service of the nation.