Sharman Stone (Murray, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I too rise to support the condolence motion on the deaths of Private Nathan Bewes, Trooper Jason Thomas Brown, Private Grant Walter Kirby, Private Tomas James Dale and Lance Corporal Jared MacKinney.

This in fact is the second time that I have publicly talked about the sadness associated with the deaths of our Defence Force personnel in Afghanistan. The first time—it was just a short time ago—was at the request of the Goulburn Valley Vietnam veterans who, on the Battle of Long Tan commemoration day, asked that I pass a special motion of condolence at their commemorative service and that I list all of those who died in Afghanistan under the Australian flag. Of course, our Vietnam veterans are the Defence Force personnel in Australia who know best how a country can turn on its own personnel and cause enormous grief and sadness if what those personnel have done on behalf of the nation is misunderstood and condemned. We all remember how the Vietnam veterans suffered when the Australian media in particular but also a lot of younger adults, students of the day, condemned them. They were spat at when they returned. They were told to get out of their uniforms quickly. They were called baby killers. They were told the war in Vietnam was a dishonourable war.

When we debate the Afghanistan war today and tomorrow, may it be well understood—so no Australians can imagine otherwise for a moment—that we in parliament, of all political backgrounds, honour and understand the courage of our Defence Force personnel and the supreme sacrifice that some of our men and women in uniform make. In the case of the Afghanistan war we have had 21 killed since 2001, when we began what is called Operation Slipper. There have been 52 wounded just this year but 152 wounded since that operation began. It is an extremely dangerous place, Afghanistan. It is a war a little like Vietnam in that the enemy do not necessarily wear uniforms, they are great exponents of guerilla warfare and they manufacture personnel mines of all different types that make it almost impossible for Australia and its allies to know from day to day what they might encounter when they are out on their patrols. I want to make sure that the Australian public understand that, even if they do not necessarily agree with why we are deploying our troops in Afghanistan, they should never cast aspersions on the quality of the men and women in uniform who represent us in that war zone.

I am proud of course to be the mother of a major in the Australian Army, who is currently in the United States. He has served in Iraq and East Timor. I note that four of the five soldiers who we honour today were themselves in more than one deployment, which of course means that they were seasoned soldiers, but that one of the soldiers whose loss we are saddened by was in his first operational deployment. The war takes no special notice of how long a soldier has been trained or for how long he has been deployed. It is really an accident of life, in a sense, as to who steps on that mine or who comes under fire from the enemy.

I want especially to acknowledge today Lance Corporal Jared MacKinney. He was killed in an intense firefight against the Taliban in Afghanistan on 24 August 2010. He was 28, born in Canberra and based in Brisbane. He was a seasoned soldier, having served in East Timor, Iraq and once before in Afghanistan. He leaves a wife, a daughter, Annabell, and a newborn baby who will never know him but who will of course be immensely proud that his father was a soldier of the Australian Defence Force who was honoured in this place and whose bravery, commitment and patriotism will never be forgotten.

We also acknowledge today Private Tomas James Dale. He was a member of the First Mentoring Task Force and was killed in action on 20 August 2010. He was only 21. He was in his first operational deployment. He was born in the UK but was living in Adelaide. He joined the Australian Army, something that he had wanted to do since he was a very young man, and he leaves behind his parents and brothers, Sam and Joe.

We honour Private Grant Walter Kirby, who was also with the First Mentoring Task Force and also killed on 20 August 2010. He leaves behind two daughters and a loving family. Private Kirby was born in Nambour, Queensland, and had already served in East Timor and Iraq.

Then there is Trooper Jason Brown, who was killed by gunshot wounds after battling insurgents on 13 August 2010. He was 29 years of age and leaves parents and one sister. Trooper Brown was born in Sydney and had served in East Timor three times before his death in action in Afghanistan.

We also recognise and grieve for Private Nathan Bewes, who was killed by an improvised explosive device on Friday evening, 9 July 2010. He was also serving with the First Mentoring Task Force. He was born in Kogarah, New South Wales, and he leaves his loving parents and sister and his partner, Alice. He was on his second deployment to Afghanistan. He had been there previously in 2008 and had also served in East Timor in 2006.

So 21 of our brave patriots have been killed in Afghanistan in a war which is, as we know, complex and difficult. There is of course no question that it is our intention to try to make that part of the world a safer place, to try to push back the evils of the Taliban and other terrorist forces like them to bring a safer place to people who live in that area of Afghanistan and neighbouring Pakistan.

I am reminded very much of the war memorials that are scattered all around the 52 towns in my electorate of Murray. Some of them stand alone because the towns have disappeared. These small towns gave up their finest in the First World War. I think of Campbells Forest, a little community with one hall left, and inside that hall there are just war memorials. Some of those memorials show half of the people who left for the First World War did not return. So we say, generation after generation, ‘This will be the last time that we have to march out of Australia with our finest and best to try to bring peace in other parts of the world.’ Indeed in the Second World War we tried our best to make sure that we were not overtaken by the Japanese, and we succeeded with those brave militia men who had done their training in Australia for such a short time and who marched into New Guinea and did a miraculous task fighting a hidden enemy much greater in number than they were on the ground.

I have often been told by the people left in these small communities, often the older people, ‘Look, our brightest and bravest and best were in the First World War; those diggers set the reputation for Australia for all time.’ I know that for generations, perhaps, that has been understood. Who could ever be as brave, as willing, as innovative and as tenacious as those old diggers in the First World War? I recently had the honour of going to Al Minhad, in the Arab Emirates, to the army base that Australians deploy from as they move forward into Afghanistan. Some of them go to Iraq but mostly they now go to Afghanistan. I looked at those soldiers sitting in the plane, ready to fly into Afghanistan, and I can tell you that they are the echo of the diggers. There is no doubt that they have the same fortitude and patriotism of their forefathers. We have lost 21 of our magnificent young men, but none of them would ever have imagined that the task they did was not honourable, and they have not died in vain.

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