Bruce Billson (Dunkley, Liberal Party, Minister Assisting the Minister for Defence) Share this | Hansard source

In a speech in this place last evening about the magnificent and nationally significant Australian Ex-Prisoner of War Memorial in Ballarat and my recent second visit to the memorial for its third anniversary commemoration, the member for Ballarat misrepresented me on a number of occasions. In the interests of brevity, I will just refer to three, if I may. Firstly, the member for Ballarat claimed that I had made a decision:

... not to grant national status to the Australian Ex-POW Memorial.

This is untrue. I and the government have long recognised the national significance of the memorial, and had she attended the third anniversary commemorative service she would have heard this first-hand herself.

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