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

On indulgence, I join the Prime Minister in supporting this statement. Forty years ago last night Australia was a different country and it was quite a different world when brave Australian men, Australian soldiers, again in our uniform, went to Coral and Balmoral Fire Support Bases some 20 kilometres north of Bien Hoa in South Vietnam.

Over a 3½-week period 2,000 Australian soldiers would be engaged in what was very heavy contact. As the Prime Minister said, almost 60 Vietnamese were confirmed dead, but the reports are in the order of some 300. Three and a half weeks after the initial movement on the evening of 12 May, 26 Australians would have given their lives and 100 would be wounded, but every single one of those men that returned to this country was a different man from that which he had been when he went.

It is very easy for us in this century to look back and settle for the broad brush strokes of our history and to not fully appreciate individual sacrifices that have been made in our name. But in our uniform, under our flag, under the Australian Army rising sun, they were wounded, they gave their lives and they suffered emotional and other traumas. Their families made enormous involuntary sacrifices to allow them to serve our nation. In doing so, their deep unyielding grief for those who were lost and those who were wounded in emotional and physical terms should remind every Australian that there are some truths by which we live that are worth fighting to defend.

As I said last night at the reception for these men and their families and the men and women who wear our uniform today, there are many things of which our country can be and is enormously proud. These men are one of the highest, if not the highest, examples. But one of the things that we must seek to do as a nation is this: whatever the circumstances and whatever the decisions taken by our governments to send men and women forward in dangerous ways in our name to fight for our values and our beliefs, we should never repeat the way in which these men were treated when they returned from the conflict in South Vietnam. We will honour them not only by this gesture but mostly by the way we choose to live our lives and shape our nation. We thank them for what they have done for us. Lest we forget.

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