Michael Danby (Melbourne Ports, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

On 16 January, as locals have done for the last 70 years, a commemoration was held in the St Kilda Cemetery for Captain Albert Jacka VC and bar. As I have done every year since becoming the member for Melbourne Ports I attended this moving ceremony for our local war hero at St Kilda Cemetery. It is usually addressed by someone from the family or an eminent historian like Geoff Blainey or one of the great local leaders of our veterans organisations, like Brigadier Jack Rossi.

Jacka was awarded Australia’s first Victoria Cross in the First World War for gallantry, valour and selflessness. On 19 May 1915, the Anzacs were entrenched above the beaches at Gallipoli and the Turks launched a major assault on their position. A section of the trench at Courtney’s Post was captured. When the Anzacs struggled to drive them back, Jacka, taking advantage of a diversion created by the bomb throwers at one end of the Turkish position, took on the Turks, killing all of the occupants of their trench. We have just heard the member for Lingiari describe in detail the actions of Corporal Benjamin Roberts-Smith VC, who has just won his award for his role in Afghanistan. How strikingly similar they were to the actions of Jacka. The citation for Jacka’s VC reads:

For most conspicuous bravery on the night of the 19-20 May, 1915, at Courtney's Post, Gallipoli Peninsular. Lance Corporal Jacka, while holding a portion of our trench with four men, was heavily attacked. When all except himself were killed or wounded, the trench was rushed and occupied by seven Turks. Lance Corporal Jacka at once most gallantly attacked them single-handed and killed the whole party, five by rifle fire and two with the bayonet.

While 90 years later we honoured and remembered Jacka’s bravery, we were unaware that eight days later, on 23 January, we would again be honouring an exceptional piece of bravery by another Australian soldier in the line of duty. Corporal Benjamin Roberts-Smith, like Jacka, was an ordinary bloke, a somewhat large bloke, who did something extraordinary, and he has received the nation’s highest honour for his actions in Afghanistan. Roberts-Smith’s gallantry has been recognised once before, in 2006, when he was awarded the Medal for Gallantry. His actions on 11 June 2010 epitomise the definition that is appropriate for the award of the Victoria Cross.

Roberts-Smith’s story is one in which we see not only the bravery and valour of one soldier but also, I would argue, the continuum of Captain Albert Jacka’s great service in the First World War. It is typical of those heroes who step forward in the various conflicts that Australia has been involved in in the defence of our nation. Every time one of our armed forces engages an enemy in the line duty they do so for their mates, their family and their country. Every day they put their lives at risk and every day they act alone and take a level of bravery and gallantry that turns them into Australia’s heroes. I was going to read the details of Corporal Roberts-Smith’s actions when his special operations group conducted a helicopter assault on Tizak to capture a local senior Taliban commander, but the member for Lingiari did it so well I do not think it is necessary to repeat it.

It was not simply for his mates that Benjamin Roberts-Smith did that. I heard, sitting at a breakfast table in faraway Melbourne, him interviewed the following morning on the ABC. He was asked about why he did what he did. He said:

“I believe that we—

that is, the soldiers fighting in Afghanistan on Australia’s behalf—

are making a difference in stemming the flow of terrorism into Australia, and I want my children to be able to live as everyone does now without fear of getting onto a bus and having it blow up.”

So we see this picture of Corporal Roberts-Smith, his lovely wife Emma and their twins, Eve and Elizabeth; we see his extraordinary gallantry; but we also see his clear-sighted understanding of why he is doing what he is doing. That makes us all proud of him and his deeds. It makes it even more a source of pride that we have one of our leading soldiers like his mates who knows what he is doing, why he is doing it, why he is there on the country’s behalf.

Tattooed across corporal Roberts-Smith’s chest are the words, ‘I will not fail my brothers.’ This pledge rang true on 11 June, and for his actions the nation is indebted to him. Corporal Roberts-Smith told the Australian at the point where he saw the Taliban fellow about to throw a hand grenade:

“At that point I decided I’d had enough. I wasn’t going to wait until someone got hit. I know their families, they know mine. I’m not going to let someone get hit while I sit here doing nothing.”

That kind of spirit and commitment to the safety of others—the commitment to help and risk one’s own life to better others—is the same spirit that Albert Jacka showed in that trench in Gallipoli, Courtney’s Post, all those years ago, and of course Jacka repeated many times in France, where he won the MC and rose to the rank of captain. The same spirit was shown by a current recipient of the VC, SAS Trooper Mark Donaldson, who exposed himself to heavy machine gunfire to retrieve a wounded translator. It is the spirit which Australian soldiers should live up to and embrace.

Corporal Roberts-Smith and his troops’ victory in Tizak is just one of many that Australia has seen recently in Afghanistan in Oruzgan province. I want to say something about this because I think it is important not to see Benjamin Roberts-Smith’s actions in isolation. He would not want us to see his deeds in context of the Army’s military activities for Benjamin Roberts-Smith is part of a highly successful operation that is going on in those two provinces in Kandahar and Oruzgan.

Three Australian soldiers were recently profiled in the Australian. They were not identified for security reasons. The three men from 2nd Commando Regiment revealed that there was a slow but definite improvement in the military situation in Afghanistan. All three spoke of the importance of Australia’s contribution in Oruzgan and said that the difference on the ground in the southern provinces was remarkable. Sergeant R said:

“We are more mobile, (able to) establish ourselves and disrupt and get in there and get under their skin.”

Having served in Afghanistan three times, the sergeant stated that his platoon used the ‘tethered goat’ approach to draw out insurgents. He said that on recent tours the tactics are keeping the Taliban on the run, with 90-kilometre motorised patrols into the enemy’s heartland. Captain A reported that his platoon’s operations in the southern province of Kandahar and in the Mirabad Valley of Oruzgan had made substantial differences. The platoon’s operations had allowed coalition forces to establish a permanent security presence in the area.

These three men, like Corporal Roberts-Smith, have also been awarded for their bravery and valour. The dangerous and risky operations our diggers undertake in Oruzgan and in the southern province of Kandahar are enormously important for the battle against the Taliban. Last month Australian and Afghan troops removed significant quantities of explosives and weapons from the insurgents in those areas. They seized an insurgent cache that included 400 kilograms of explosives and 22 ready to use IEDs—improvised explosive devices. The Australian Defence Department revealed that in the last week of January this year operations within the Baluchi Valley north of the Australian base in Tarin Kowt had received considerable success against the Taliban.

These victories and the individual commitment to duty that Corporal Benjamin Roberts-Smith has shown by his actions on that day in 2010, and all those serving in Afghanistan, shows that we are making a difference—our presence and operations—to drive back the Taliban. The Taliban, we remember, hosted al-Qaeda, which has indulged in many attacks on Australians, whether on September 11 when Australians were killed in New York, or in Bali or even in Mumbai. These fellows are helping dismantle the Taliban in Oruzgan and Kandahar and they are being extremely effective.

Corporal Roberts-Smith’s heroism makes it possible, through these military accomplishments, that we here in Canberra are able to work with the government of Afghanistan and we have the political space and time to stand up the Afghan national defence forces. After all, Australian people do not want to be sacrificing our blood and treasure in Afghanistan forever, but it is due to the sustained work and heroism of people like Roberts-Smith and SAS Trooper Mark Donaldson that we have the ability to do the political task, and that is to make sure the Afghans can stand up and defend their own country from the terrorists who would threaten this country. It is only because of people like Roberts-Smith and all of the other blokes who are fighting with the 1st Commando Regiment and the SAS that we are able to do the reconstruction effort in Afghanistan and give the opportunity for the training of the Afghan National Army. It is because of Roberts-Smith and people like him that Australia is able to make a contribution to achieving that worthy and just political cause, that just end, in Afghanistan.

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