Warren Snowdon (Lingiari, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for External Territories) Share this | Hansard source

It gives me great pleasure to participate in the debate on the Australian War Memorial Amendment Bill 2014 and to use this opportunity to speak about the Australian War Memorial, which is arguably Australia's most important national cultural institution—although it is not just an institution; it is a monument and a memorial to Australians who have sacrificed their lives at war.

It is worthwhile, I think, to reflect for a moment at least on the origins of this great place. It arose, really, out of the work of Charles Bean. He, of course, was an official war correspondent for the First World War, and so he visited not only Gallipoli but also the Western Front. After he had been to Gallipoli and seen the horrors of Gallipoli, he witnessed Australia's first big battles on the Western Front, at Fromelles and Pozieres, in July 1916. Bean made some graphic observations about those events. It is worth reminding ourselves, I think, that on 19 July 1916, at the Battle of Fromelles, 5½ thousand Australians were either killed, captured or wounded. Around 1,800 were killed in that one period. It is Australia's highest loss in battle over a short time. In commenting on Pozieres, which followed after Fromelles, Bean made these observations:

One knew that the Brigades which went in last night were there today in that insatiable factory of ghastly wounds. The men were simply turned in there as into some ghastly giant mincing machine. They have to stay there while shell after huge shell descends with a shriek close beside them—each one an acute mental torture—each shrieking tearing crash bringing a promise to each man—instantaneous—I will tear you into ghastly wounds—I will rend your flesh and pulp an arm or a leg –fling you half a gaping quivering man (like these that you see smashed around you one by one) to lie there rotting and blackening like all the things you saw by the awful roadside, or in that sickening dusty crater. Ten or twenty times a minute every man in the trench has that instant fear thrust tight upon his shoulders—I don't care how brave he is—with a crash that is a physical pain and a strain to withstand.

Then a month later, as the Bills Digest informs us, the idea of a memorial museum for Australia was born, as Bean's confidant AW Bazley later recalled. He said:

I remember in August 1916 when after his busy days tramping the Pozieres battlefield and visiting units in the line he would roll out his blankets on the chalk firestep of the old British front line … on the edge of Becourt Wood and Sausage Gully. We used to sleep feet to head—C.E.W.B., Padre Dexter, myself, and others—and although I cannot recall the actual conversations today I do remember that on a number of occasions he talked about what he had in his mind concerning some future Australian war memorial museum.

So the founding fathers of this museum, this great monument, became Charles Bean, our official First World War historian, and John Treloar, who became the director of the memorial between 1920 and 1952. But it was not until 1941 that we finally saw the opening of the basic buildings for this great place. In 1918, Bean conceived how the memorial would appear. He said:

… on some hill-top—still, beautiful, gleaming white and silent, a building of three parts, a centre and two wings. The centre will hold the great national relics of the A.I.F. one wing will be a gallery—holding the pictures that our artists painted and drew actually on the scene and amongst the events themselves. The other wing will be a library to contain the written official records of every unit.

Of course, subsequently, it became a memorial not only to the First World War but to subsequent conflicts—the Second World War, Korea and beyond. As a former Minister for Veterans' Affairs and Minister for Defence Science and Personnel, I have visited war museums across the world and I have to say that the Australian War Memorial is unique among them. I know the Australians who visit this wonderful place understand the gravitas that hits you once you are there. But it is really very important that we understand the significance both nationally and internationally.

At the beginning, Bean had hoped that the memorial would incorporate a roll of honour, which it does, listing the Australian dead of the war. Now that list is 102,000 men and women. As a result of changes which were made by the War Memorial Council last year, under the leadership of Ken Doolan as chair and director Dr Brendan Nelson, dead peacekeepers have been added to the Roll of Honour, which is as it should be.

The really significant thing, in my view, in those periods post-1941 in terms of the development of the War Memorial is the Hall of Memory, which was completed in 1959. It is inspiring. We recall well Remembrance Day of 1993 when then Prime Minister Paul Keating spoke, as the remains of a soldier killed in the battlefields of the Western Front, name unknown, were placed in a marble covered tomb in the Hall of Memory. At that time, Paul Keating said:

We do not know this Australian's name, we never will … He is one of them, and he is all of us.

That says what it is. When you comprehend those 102,000 names and then all of those missing in action, names unknown, burial places unknown, it really is a really, really significant thing. That Hall of Memory and the Roll of Honour is a repository of our soul. We as a nation are all the better for it.

There are some who would have argued in the past that somehow or other the War Memorial is a glorification of war, which of course it is not. It tells a story of war. It tells a story of our role in past conflicts. It reminds us, if anything, of the stupidity of war—of the need for us, every day, to strive to fight the peace. That, of course, is why we have such great confidence in the men and women of the Australian Defence Force, because that is their role. When we think about this War Memorial and see it as the monument that it is and recognise its role for us, for all Australians, in telling our national story, then we are all enhanced by that knowledge.

There have been significant developments at the War Memorial over the years. I mentioned some. But as the Centenary of Anzac comes upon us, a number of things have happened, one of which I was happily involved in as the former minister responsible for the War Memorial: the former Labor government made available $28.7 million to fund the redevelopment of the First World War galleries within the War Memorial, with $3.82 million from the War Memorial's own financial resources and $1 million from BHP Billiton. Last night members of this parliament had the opportunity to preview those galleries. I was fortunate enough to get a tour around those yet unfinished galleries, as they were last week, and I have to say it enhances the visit to the War Memorial greatly. I want to publicly thank and acknowledge the work of all those involved in these new galleries. I am sure most if not every member of parliament will have been there and will know the dioramas that exist there. Now there is a chronology, so when you walk into those First World War galleries, you start at the beginning of the war and work your way through. It is a fine monument and tells a really significant story, this story of Australians at war in the First World War on the Western Front and elsewhere. I say to those people who have not had the opportunity to visit: please do so. You will walk away with a great sense of pride in what has been achieved.

It has not been achieved without leadership. That leadership has been provided by the War Memorial Council. The current members of that council are Rear Admiral Ken Doolan, who of course is the national president of the RSL; Air Chief Marshal Geoff Brown AO, who is the Chief of Air Force; the Hon. Graham Edwards AM, a former member of this fine parliament, a veteran himself and president of the Western Australian branch of the RSL; Mr Peter FitzSimons AM; Vice Admiral Tim Barrett AO CSC, the Chief of Navy; Dr Allan Hawke; Lieutenant-General David Morrison AO, the Chief of Army; Major General Paul Stevens AO (retired); Ms Gabrielle Trainor; Mr Les Carlyon; Ms Jillian Segal and Mr Kerry Stokes.

On Mr Stokes, can I say that he has been a wonderful contributor to Australia's war history. He has been a benefactor of the War Memorial and a benefactor of keeping these memories of Australians at war alive. His purchase of the pictures of Vignacourt, which record Australians away from the front during the First World War and are now on show at the gallery at the War Memorial, is a tribute to his philanthropy but also, most importantly, to his dedication to keeping these things alive.

I want to also talk about Dr Brendan Nelson, who of course is the director of the Australian War Memorial. I was in the fortunate position of being involved in his appointment, and I have to say what a wonderful appointment it has been. To his predecessor, Steve Gower, who spent many years as the director of the War Memorial, I want say: thank you for your contribution, Steve. I have not had the opportunity to publicly say this, but you made a wonderful contribution.

To Brendan and his staff, should they be listening, I say thank you for your leadership, Brendan, but, most importantly, I thank those people you have around you, who make the place work and who provide you with the advice and the insights: the historians, who do such wonderful work, the curators, the guides, the cleaners and the people who look after the landscape around the War Memorial—all of those involved. I say thank you on behalf of a grateful nation for keeping in a proper way this national icon, this national monument, this national museum.

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