Brendan Nelson (Bradfield, Liberal Party, Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Hansard source

I obviously join very strongly in support of this motion of condolence for Trooper David Pearce, who is survived by his wife, Nicki, and daughters, Stephanie and Hannah; Special Forces Sergeant Matthew Locke—or ‘Maddie’ Locke, as he was called—who is survived by his wife, Leigh, and son, Keegan; and Special Forces Commando Luke Worsley, who is survived by his parents, John and Marjorie. I had the honour, I suppose, of being the Minister for Defence in sending each of them off to Afghanistan. I say this to the member for Hunter: I think it is fair to say that no person goes into being the Minister for Defence without leaving it as a different person, having a different outlook on things.

Unlike the others whom we are honouring today, these three men gave their lives in our name. When I sent them off, as I did the others, I would have said to them: you are going in our name; you are wearing our uniform; you have the Army rising sun on one shoulder and you have the Australian flag on the other; but you do so to remind us that there are some truths by which we live as Australians that are worth fighting to defend and, in particular, to see that we shine a light into dark corners of the world where people cannot begin to even imagine the freedoms that we enjoy in our own country, which too often are taken for granted by so many Australians and which have been given us by more than 100,000 Australians who gave their lives, in our name, in other parts of the world.

Each of these men died in Afghanistan, as the Prime Minister just reminded us. Poppy Pearce was in his 40s. He joined the Army late in life. He was a member of 2/14 Cavalry and he was in an ASLAV when it was hit by an improvised explosive device. It is noteworthy that before he left he spoke to his family—as soldiers do, by the way—about the prospect of being killed. He said to his family, ‘If I’m going to die, I’d rather die doing something worth while than getting run over by a bus.’ At his funeral in Brisbane, which was attended by the Prime Minister and the former Prime Minister, John Howard, his brother Edward Pearce said that his death should not be in vain. He said: ‘Let this harden our will to prevail. Let us not lose sight of his mates who are still there.’

These three men who gave their lives for us, literally, were at the very sharp end of something that our generation is engaged in: fighting resurgent totalitarianism, which is in the form of Islamic extremism. These men on our behalf were fighting people who have hijacked the good name of Islam to build a violent political utopia. We will honour these men and their deaths, and we will also honour their families, if we make absolutely certain that we are nothing less than determined to prevail in this. We thank all of them. We thank those with whom they served. We thank their commanding officers. We particularly thank them for reminding us of who we are and the things that are really important in life.

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