Alan Griffin (Bruce, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Veterans' Affairs) Share this | Hansard source

I again join with others to acknowledge a great Australian, a man who many years ago showed amazing courage in the face of great adversity but who also, after that time, proved, as has been said by some who have won Victoria Crosses and many who have dealt with those who have, that it is one thing to win one; it is another thing to be able to wear one in subsequent years and to do it justice.

Ted Kenna was such a man. Not only did he win his Victoria Cross with a display of great valour in circumstances which could have ended in personal disaster but he then became an example to all Australians in his deportment over the years. He was an ordinary man who did extraordinary things and who lived up to the extraordinary responsibility that he had as one of Australia’s fewer than 100 Victoria Cross winners—one of only 20 from World War II. He is the last of our 20 Victoria Cross winners from World War II to pass on, and so this is the closing of an era. There are many World War II veterans left, but Ted was the last one left who had received the Victoria Cross.

Much has been said about his act of bravery on that day. I would like to focus on just a small part of that and relate it to the proceedings at his state funeral at St Patrick’s Cathedral on Thursday, 16 July. One of the speakers on that occasion was Major General Gordon Maitland. Major General Maitland is a very impressive man in his own right, and on that day he delivered an astoundingly dignified address. I note the member for Berowra is nodding and I am sure he knows Major General Maitland from his travels. Major General Maitland went through the circumstances around Ted’s winning of the Victoria Cross and his deportment since. I will focus on one element of what Major General Maitland said; I will paraphrase him because I cannot do his words justice. His point, which he illustrated so clearly, was that Ted and his men knew that in the circumstances they were in at that time, pinned down by machine gun fire, action had to be taken and someone had to take that action. Ted was the Bren gunner for that platoon, and his responsibility, given he was carrying the firepower for the platoon, was to act. As Major General Maitland said, there was never any doubt that Ted would do so, and the fact that he did so so successfully and was able to win the day and save the lives of so many of his comrades was a tremendous example of the courage that he displayed. But Ted was a modest man about his award and he was quoted around the time as saying that it was more about the mates that he served alongside. He said:

… the boys at the time, it belongs as much to them as it does me.

He revelled in his return after his shooting, firstly in the not well-known but outstandingly poignant love story of how he met his wife, Marjorie. She nursed him when he first came back with horrific injuries, and they then formed a lifelong partnership, which bore four children and was obviously the most important part of his life. Again, in good old-fashioned Australian style, he could always joke about it, suggesting that Marjorie had wooed him rather than the other way around. That is an Australian male talking, isn’t it!

His funeral was well attended, as it should have been. It was attended by significant elements of our military, of our returned services community and of the broader community. It was a suitable testament to his exemplary service both in the military at the time and subsequently as an Australian icon. I had the privilege of meeting him only once, at the footy about 10 years ago, but I will always remember the opportunity I had to shake his hand on that occasion.

He had not been well of late and the circumstances of his passing were not entirely unexpected. He left at the age of 90, having lived a very full life—a life that brought him and his family great credit and a life that, in many ways, encapsulated all that over the years has been good about the Anzac spirit. He was a man who did great things when they were required, at a time when his mates needed him. He was a truly great Australian, a man it was my very great pleasure to meet, and a man who did great honour to his name.

See this speech in context