Jane Prentice (Ryan, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise today to join with my colleagues to offer my condolences, on behalf of the Ryan electorate, to the family and friends of Corporal Cameron Stewart Baird MG and to pay tribute to his exceptional and heroic life.

I must confess that, on hearing the tragic news last Saturday that there had been an incident in Afghanistan that had injured and killed Australian soldiers, my first reaction was one of immense sadness combined with an almost guilty relief, knowing that my own son had returned from his deployment to Afghanistan several weeks ago. Not for a moment am I suggesting that my son's role was anything like the work being carried out by Corporal Baird and his team. However, last year when I was privileged to spend time in Afghanistan on the Australian Defence Force Parliamentary Program, as has my colleague the member for Longman, one thing I did find was that, if you are 'in country', incidents can occur at any time and anywhere, no matter your role.

My next reaction was to think of all the families and friends of service men and women still on duty in Afghanistan and how, every time the telephone rang for the next 24 hours, they would hope it was not bad news about their loved one.

Mr Deputy Speaker, as you are aware, while the ADF Parliamentary Program facilitates members of parliament spending time with our service men and women in their environment, there is also the reverse program. Last week Lieutenant Colonel Todd Vail joined my Canberra office. Lieutenant Colonel Vail is himself a former commando, who has undertaken many overseas deployments including to Afghanistan. So when we heard of the death of Corporal Baird, I asked Todd for his thoughts, to try to understand, even in a small way, how it feels to lose a comrade. This is what he said:

The first notification usually strikes you to the core—I was at home at the time and found out through friends who had heard it on the news—everyone who you meet or talk to will ask questions about who it was and the circumstances in which it occurred, expecting you as a member of the Defence Force to have all the answers. However, you know no details due to the blanket media ban, which is not lifted until the next-of-kin have been notified and approved the release of the name. During this time you speculate along with everyone else. Being a member of the ADF you do wonder if you knew him—particularly as the media said he was in a "leadership" role.

The news brings a sense of reality which hits home—you realise that the profession you have chosen can be deadly—you think of his family and what they must be going through—it makes you think of your own family and you put yourself in their shoes and wonder how they would cope. You also think of the injured and hope their injuries will not leave them maimed with little quality of life.

Having spent time in Afghanistan you can visualise the incident, your senses are alert to the sights, sounds and smell of the Afghan countryside, they play over and over again in your mind on a never ending loop.

In the end you reconcile your feelings by knowing he died doing what he loved, surrounded by his mates.

Today is business as usual—we have a job to do and he would expect us to get on and do it. On Friday we will pause, as a group, and remember him at a memorial service where his name will be added to a memorial wall along with 39 others who have also paid the supreme sacrifice carrying out their nation's work in trying to bring peace and stability to the people of Afghanistan.

Corporal Baird's commitment to his chosen career as a soldier and to our mission in Afghanistan was unwavering, as was his loyalty to his mates and his love for his own family and the Army family. Soldiers like Corporal Baird are making a difference in Afghanistan and we must not let his sacrifice, and those of his fellow 39 soldiers, be in vain. On behalf of the Ryan electorate, I offer my sincere condolences to Corporal Baird's family, friends, colleagues and loved ones. Lest we forget.

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