Ms Catherine King (Ballarat, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the Military Memorials of National Significance Bill 2008. I do regret very much the speech that the shadow minister, the member for Mackellar, has chosen to make in this place. The reason that we are here this morning is not that I want this memorial recognised as a national memorial, not that the people of my electorate want this memorial recognised as a national memorial but that the Australian ex-prisoners of war community want this memorial recognised as a national memorial. They have lobbied not just me but a number of other people to have this memorial recognised, and there is some urgency in doing so. Yes, it is true that I am going on maternity leave shortly, but the urgency is about the age of the ex-prisoners of war community. Every day we are losing more and more of them and I do not want to see us lose any more before this is recognised. That is what the urgency of getting this bill through this place is about.

The bill will allow the government to officially designate the ex-prisoner of war memorial, which is located in Ballarat but is an Australian ex-prisoner of war memorial, as a national memorial. The previous government stated that the only way in which this could be done was if the ordinance to which the shadow minister referred was repealed. That is not what we are doing today. Today we are debating new legislation which sets up new criteria under which memorials outside of Canberra can be recognised. And one of the first to be recognised is the Australian ex-POW memorial located in my electorate, in Ballarat.

Neither the minister nor I have made any statements that are incorrect about the previous government’s position. They could have introduced this very legislation, but they did not because they did lack the political will to actually recognise and do something about the will of the Australian ex-prisoners of war community, who desperately wanted this memorial recognised. The Australian Ex-Prisoner of War Memorial in Ballarat will be the first designated national memorial outside of Canberra. As such, it is an important part of the way that we as a nation remember and commemorate the sacrifice of our men and women who served us in war.

The bill also sets out the steps required for a war memorial to be given national significance. These steps will ensure that the memory and achievements of our soldiers will be remembered in an appropriate way.

Australia’s military history is full of epic victories and defeats. The names we remember—Gallipoli, Villers-Bretonneux, Tobruk, Milne Bay, Kokoda and Long Tan—all tell of great struggle. They speak of courage and sacrifice, of death and destruction, of mates and enemies, of blunders and triumphs. These names that we speak every year on Anzac Day and again on Remembrance Day are markers of moments in our history that we choose never to forget—that we remember. Whether we remember parents, aunts and uncles or husbands and wives, we do remember. We remember the people that fought for Australia for a number of reasons. There is the personal pain of memory, the pangs of loss that many Australians still feel. There is a general feeling of sadness and pride in the memory of the men and women who defended this country. Australia stops every year to remember the dawn of 25 April.

We remember certain battles because of the stories of bravery and hardship that surround them. We remember certain places because they have tangible connections to the people that we remember. The Menin Gate at Ypres, Anzac Cove and the cemeteries of the Western Front are places where we site our memories. The War Memorial in Canberra is another such place where we choose to remember the men and women who gave their lives. From these sites we can see the absolute importance of having a physical space where memory can be located.

These sites of national remembrance serve as beacons for the community that are tangible relics of our deeply felt emotions, but Australia’s memories are not only sited here in Canberra. They are located in the kitchens and backyards of our nation. They are part of the fabric of our towns, our suburbs and our cities. The men and women who fought came from every part of this country, no more so than the country towns of Australia. There is much to be said for extending the significance of national memory to places outside the formal avenues of the national capital. Canberra’s memorials are beautiful, poignant places, but in recognising the way that the Australian military experience touched the whole of the country we should be able to remember at memorials of national significance outside the capital—and these places, very few in number, should not have any less significance than Canberra’s national memorials.

This bill allows memorials of national significance to be designated, and it lays down very strict and very narrow criteria under which they can be recognised as such. The Australian Ex-Prisoners of War Memorial in my electorate will be the first example of a memorial of national significance being designated outside of Canberra under this new legislation. The Australian Ex-Prisoners of War Memorial recognises the experience of a unique group of veterans. It recognises a history and the stories that go beyond a specific battle or a specific war. These stories are often untold, the experiences kept from younger generations, the people who experienced them unwilling or unable to relive the trauma.

The stories are often not ones of loud roaring battle; they are stories of endurance against horrible conditions and stories of solidarity, and they are an expression of the great ability of humans to fight and struggle to keep their humanity in the face of barbarity, deprivation and, in the case of some 8,000 Australians, terrible deaths. They are melancholy stories. The Sandakan death march, the Burma railway and Changi form part of this litany of human sadness. They are also stories of quiet dignity and courage. Above all, they are stories that must be remembered. They are the stories of our ex-prisoners of war.

It is important that we as a society continue to remember the people who suffered these terrible experiences. It is and must continue to be part of our national story—that is, not to glorify war but rather to never forget its consequences, the terrible inhumanity that man can inflict on man, and to never forget why we must strive both at home and in the international community to prevent such conflicts.

It is important also to remember that the prisoner-of-war experience was not confined to male soldiers. Servicewomen also faced the spectre of imprisonment through Australia’s wars, particularly in the Second World War, when significant numbers of women were taken prisoner. Women behind the wire suffered terrible deprivation. They also faced a minefield of sexual violence that male prisoners by and large did not. Despite this, these women were brave, they were defiant and they survived. These women deserve to be remembered, and the Australian Ex-Prisoners of War Memorial commemorates their experiences.

To remember the people who suffered behind the barbed wire of Australia’s enemies through our conflicts, the Ballarat RSL, the Australian POW Association, the local community and the former federal member for Ballarat, Michael Ronaldson, banded together to build a memorial in Ballarat that respectfully and reverently commemorates the contribution of every Australian prisoner of war. Every Australian who has been held prisoner during wartime by the enemy has their name in a place of honour. In a tranquil setting it is possible for everybody to contemplate the lives of people who gave so much in the defence of their country.

There are many events in our nation’s history that we need to remember better, and the experience of our POWs in wars ranging from the Boer War to the Korean War needs to be publicly acknowledged. The memorial in Ballarat is a step towards recognising their contribution to the war effort. Prisoners of war suffered horribly, yet their experiences have not gained the same amount of attention that many others have. By way of an example, everyone in Australia remembers the terrible, tragic loss of the HMAS Sydney, with good reason. But Australia during World War II suffered a worse maritime tragedy which is not nearly so well remembered. The Montevideo Maru, a Japanese transport ship, was sunk by an American submarine on 1 July 1942. Unbeknownst to the Americans—and the Japanese gave no indication—the ship was carrying over 1,000 Australian prisoners of war in its hold. The ship went down, with no survivors. This remains Australia’s greatest maritime loss of life. The memorial in Ballarat commemorates this event. It lists the names of those involved and it provides a place for people to commemorate the brave men and women who died.

The memorial in Ballarat does not take away from the national POW memorial here in Canberra, the Changi Chapel. That is a very important memorial. It plays a very important role in recognising the terrible circumstances experienced by POWs in Changi. However the chapel, while an important part of the War Memorial, does not cover the full gamut of POW experience.

The Australian Ex-POW Memorial in Ballarat provides for every Australian POW. It lists all 35,000 names of those who were prisoners of war. The memorial in Ballarat teases out this strand of Australia’s military history so that we can see it in its full detail. The 35,000 names on the walls of the memorial tell of a continuity of experience from the Boer War to the perilous conditions behind German lines in the First World War, the camps in North Africa, the deprivation and brutality experienced by Australians captured by the Japanese army in the Pacific, and the experience of Korean War veterans in North Korean camps.

There is a need for a more inclusive national memorial for prisoners of war because their experiences were unique and need to be recognised as such. Their wars were not fought with bullets. They were fought in much simpler ways. They were fought by keeping their dignity, by staying alive, by doing every single thing they could to keep their mates alive. Their wars were fought by surviving back-breaking labour, by attempting to escape at every turn. Their weapons were their stoicism, their humour and their mates.

Remembrance is an important strand in the life of the Australian national community. As the events of Anzac Day continue to show every year, Australians want to remember the people who fought and died for them on the battlefields of the 20th century. There is a real need to understand and commemorate that experience. There is a tangible sense of the legacy that these men and women left for Australians to take up as we move into the future.

It is proper that we make it possible for our national remembrance to be undertaken outside Canberra. Australians remember their fallen all around the world. They remember them in Gallipoli in record numbers. They remember them as they walk the Kokoda Track. Australians also remember their fallen in the small local memorials, in the larger ones in our capital cities, in their churches and in their backyards. Remembrance can not be confined to one place, nor should it be. The Ex-POW Memorial in Ballarat is one such place where Australians remember the people who served them.

This memorial is unique. It lists the names of every POW who was ever captured by the enemy in all the conflicts in which Australians fought. No other memorial in the country does this. The memorial is of significant size, befitting the huge number of people that it seeks to commemorate, and I really do look forward to the shadow minister coming to visit and I will very much welcome her when she comes to see just how magnificent a memorial it is.

It is set amongst the Ballarat Botanical Gardens alongside Lake Wendouree and just near the Avenue of Prime Ministers. It consists of a stark granite wall, 130 metres long, engraved with the names of all 35,000 men and women who were taken as prisoners of war. At the centre of the memorial stand six stone obelisks displaying the names of the countries where Australians were held prisoner. The end of the path is a wall, simply engraved with the words ‘Lest we forget’. In less drought-stricken times water flows around the memorial and into a reflection pool, symbolising life and cleansing, birth and rebirth. The memorial is a fitting place to remember the contribution of those men and women who suffered in the name of Australia.

The memorial in Ballarat was built as a result of the hard work of a number of community organisations including: the Ballarat RSL; the Australian POW Association; the City of Ballarat; the former federal government, which contributed a substantial amount of funding; and the entire Ballarat community as well as the Victorian state government. I would particularly like to thank David Baird, OAM, an extraordinary man who, I am very proud to say, I would count amongst my friends. He is also someone, I am proud to say, who will be delighted that this legislation is going through the House. As a POW himself, his experiences of life have been quite extraordinary. There is also Les Kennedy, OAM, and Liz Heagney, who did all of the hard work to compile the 35,000 names. I want to thank all of them for their incredible efforts over many years to construct the memorial.

The memorial is a place where all Australians can come and pay their respects to people who gave so much in the defence of our nation. Many of the names are recognisable. Many of them tell the amazing stories that exist within the families of the 35,000 men and women who have served this country and who were made prisoners of war. In my view, no other place in Australia plays the same role in gathering together the full range of POW experiences into one place. It is for this reason that we should recognise the Australian Ex-Prisoner of War Memorial in Ballarat as nationally significant. For those reasons I support this bill. I commend the bill to the House and I really do hope that, despite the amendments that have been moved, those in opposition both here and in the other place have the confidence to do the same.

Debate (on motion by Mr Farmer) adjourned.

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