Luke Simpkins (Cowan, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

As a former major in the Australian Regular Army and a member of my local RSL, the Wanneroo-Joondalup RSL, I welcome the opportunity to speak on the Military Memorials of National Significance Bill 2008 and also to make some comments with regard to that very fine Australian Ex-Prisoners of War Memorial in Ballarat. I say at the outset that it has been many years since I have been to Ballarat. Having been involved in the sport of rowing competitively at a reasonably high level, I used to make a few journeys to Ballarat and compete on Lake Wendouree. I am not sure whether that is still possible with the amount of water in the lake, but there are some other highlights within that town. It has a rich history, and probably no greater history than this magnificent memorial to the ex-POWs. I have seen pictures of the memorial in the Ballarat Botanical Gardens, and I hope to visit it one day. It is a magnificent structure and, as others have said, a memorial which provides ex-prisoners of war, their descendants, visitors and future generations with a place where they can pay their respects to those who endured so much as prisoners of war.

But there can be no denying that this memorial has a political history. Funds had been granted by the previous government—half a million dollars of the $1.9 million that was put into the memorial from all sources. It is not my intention to go back over which side of politics helped the local community to construct the memorial. But I will take my comments back to mid-2007 to put this matter in its true context. I understand that it was on 27 June last year that the then Leader of the Opposition visited Ballarat and promised that he would:

… move anything necessary to ensure that this is properly recognised as a national war memorial.

What does the talk of recognition and a national war memorial actually mean? Definitions are very important because under the National Memorials Ordinance 1928 the central issue is that recognition of a national memorial, or to call something a national memorial, can only occur for a memorial located in the ACT. Of course, that does not mean that there are not a great many very important memorials around the rest of the country. They are very important to people in the little towns and suburbs of this great country. We have to remember that, with regard to this specific memorial, the former government said that it could not be recognised as a national war memorial because the law required all national monuments to be located in the ACT. With $500,000 granted over a couple of periods by the former government, there was no doubt that there was a huge commitment by the former government. But, I repeat again, a national memorial had to be in the ACT. A national memorial would also attract maintenance funding, and I will come to that very soon. The previous government said it was clear that it could not be done. The ordinance was clear on the point that a national memorial had to be in the ACT, and if it was not, no maintenance funding could be allocated.

The Labor MP for Ballarat apparently got legal advice last year. She said that national monuments could be located outside Canberra, and no doubt a lot of people were very pleased with that information. The member for Ballarat had legal advice and the leader of the then opposition said he would move anything necessary to ensure that this was properly recognised as a national war memorial. So two significant people had promised the people of Ballarat, the veterans and the former POWs that their memorial would be recognised as a national war memorial, which, according to the 1928 ordinance, attracts funding for maintenance. That was in June 2007. So, game over, all done, vote for Labor and it would be so. Not quite, it would seem.

Earlier this year the new Minister for Veterans’ Affairs was in Ballarat where he announced that the federal government would introduce legislation allowing memorials outside Canberra to get national recognition. He also announced a $160,000 funding package over four years to help with the memorial’s upkeep. The reality therefore is that the former government was right—it could not be done—and the legal advice of the member for Ballarat was wrong. Fortunately, plenty of money was put up to get her and the new PM out of the mess. There was, of course, plenty of money due to the previous government’s sound economic management, which saw $96 billion of debt from the last government paid off. So Labor did not actually need that 1928 ordinance any more; they did not need that law because that law could not be applied. All they needed was a new law and a grant of $160,000. You basically ticked all the boxes for what the ordinance did in any case. So they created this bill and put up $160,000. And what did the minister say? He said, ‘It was part of our stated policy.’ So now we have history being rewritten—a new law is created, money is put up and it is all done and dusted again.

Fortunately, though, this memorial is a great memorial, as I said before, which the City of Ballarat and the local people are justifiably proud of. Even though this is not a national memorial, it will be recognised by this bill and it has been given a higher profile as a result. Maybe it has even encouraged more people to visit the memorial, and I think that is a great thing. I understand that over 1,000 people a week visit the memorial already. Ballarat is a very pretty city, there is a lot to see there, and this is another great addition to that great city. I do not know the specific words used in Ballarat by the Prime Minister when he was there last year. I do know that the Age newspaper reported that he promised that the memorial would be recognised as a national memorial if Labor won government. If those were the specific terms that he used, he was either misinformed or possibly deceived, or he either misinformed or deceived the people of Ballarat and the veterans’ community about the absolute status. Perhaps it is better to not concentrate on the motive or political manoeuvrings by the then opposition, because the people got what they wanted in the end, even if it is not strictly speaking a national memorial.

However, this has created a precedent for other memorials around the country to also achieve recognition of national significance and payments for maintenance. That brings me to the very fine electorate of Cowan over in Western Australia—

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