PM 'emotional' at Port Arthur service

Malcolm Turnbull has reluctantly admitted the voice of soprano Amelia Farrugia almost reduced him to tears during the 20th anniversary commemoration of the Port Arthur massacre.

"It was very emotional," he told Neil Mitchell on radio 3AW on Friday, conceding he shed "a little one" he hoped wasn't too noticeable.

"I didn't want my feelings to interfere with the feelings of the people we were there to comfort."

The prime minister said Farrugia, who was at Port Arthur on the day Martin Bryant shot dead 35 people in 1996, sang with a "power and an impact that I've rarely heard".

"She brought me so close to tears with the force of her delivery," Mr Turnbull said.