Mrs Bronwyn Bishop (Mackellar, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Veterans' Affairs) Share this | Hansard source

I am disappointed to hear an interjection from the member for Ballarat, who says, ‘You won’t be welcome now.’ I find once again that this is the politicisation of a memorial that does not deserve to be politicised. It began with bipartisan support. It is something that needs to be restored and have that bipartisan support. It needs to be settled that there was no frustration caused by the previous government as the minister said in his speech. I read again what he said:

... to the lasting frustration of the people who made the Ex-Prisoners of War Memorial possible, the previous government refused repeated requests to recognise it as a national memorial.

That is what the minister said in his second reading speech. He then said:

The previous government’s position was that it could not be legally done. They argued that national memorials were located here in Canberra and that the ordinance did not allow national status to be given to memorials established outside the Australian Capital Territory.

He then said:

The Australian Labor Party, and particularly here I would recognise the efforts of the member for Ballarat, insisted that it could be done, if the government was willing.

The member for Ballarat was quite wrong. The minister has confirmed she was quite wrong. The explanatory memorandum to the bill introduced by the minister has shown that the member for Ballarat was quite wrong and that the stance taken was one of support, by the giving of $500,000, that the will of the Howard government to give ongoing support for maintenance was there and that at all times there was nothing but goodwill. The reason I stand here to point these out today is that it is totally out of character, from my point of view, to see the minister use spin, smoke and mirrors, and quite frankly deliberately untrue material in the second reading speech, which is an important part of the record if ever it needs to be looked at under the legislation that pertains to what courts may view.

And then to pick up Budget Paper No. 2—the condemnation lies with the Rudd government. It lies with the Treasurer, Mr Swan, because in his Budget Paper No. 2 there is a simple lie. Therefore, it is necessary to have this matter clarified and to have it aired in this place so that there can be proper reverence, so that there can be proper acknowledgement given to the work of the people who in fact brought this magnificent memorial about, so that the new category can become a successful one and so that those memorials that may wish to be included under the new legislation will be fairly appraised.

I do have some concern that it is only the Prime Minister of the day who will have to the right to say yea or nay. I do not find that to be a satisfactory outcome either. But I do hope that there will be some guidelines produced, which will mean that people who apply can have some confidence that it will not be politicised by the Prime Minister. I do think that the need for this new category—one was foreshadowed by the previous Minister for Veterans’ Affairs, Mr Billson—will be seen to have been suggested in good faith, as it was. I hope that the member for Ballarat, who has been proven in her statements to be wrong, will accept that with good grace. And I hope to see that when people come with good grace, as I intend to do, there will be no attempt to politicise it further by telling me when I come that I will not be welcome because I have aired this matter in the parliament. I would find that totally unacceptable.

I will repeat: we are debating this today to accommodate the needs of the member for Ballarat. Certainly we wish her good health and a good outcome for her confinement. And when I do come to her electorate to visit the memorial I hope that we can perhaps visit together and pay the proper reverence to that memorial in a proper manner. I therefore move:

That all words after “That” be omitted with a view to substituting the following words:“whilst not declining to the give the bill a second reading, the House:

(1)

notes that the bill creates a new category of memorial—namely a Military Memorial of National Significance;

(2)

notes that this new category of memorial, unlike ‘National Memorials’ under the National Memorials Ordinance 1928:

(a)

does not attract ongoing maintenance funding;

(b)

must not be located in the national capital; and

(c)

involves a decision of the Minister and the Prime Minister rather than the bi-partisan Canberra National Memorials Committee;

(3)

acknowledges as correct the stance of the previous Government that National Memorials, pursuant to the 1928 Ordinance, can only be located in the national capital; and

(4)

condemns the Government for:

(a)

playing politics with the veteran community;

(b)

claiming in the Budget Papers that it will declare the Australian Ex-Prisoners of War Memorial in Ballarat a national memorial when it has not done so; and

(c)

misleading the veteran community by claiming to have met an election commitment to declare the Ballarat Memorial a national memorial, when the Government has failed to do so”.

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