Lisa Chesters (Bendigo, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak to this motion of the Prime Minister with not just my own heavy heart and stories from my own family, but with a heavy heart of many in central Victoria. Central Victoria, as people in this House would know, is a very old area made up of old towns and old villages that had a great role to play in the First World War. The Centenary of Anzac Local Grants Program grants for electorates to remember, respect and reflect on the Centenary of Anzac were generous—$150,000. Local communities thought about the projects they would like to fund. We were oversubscribed in the Bendigo electorate, and that was because so many of our young men and women during that period did sign up.

A hundred years ago, Bendigo was a big town and it still is today. Towns that are not so big today but that were big back then include Woodend, which is in the Bendigo electorate and include Kyneton, which is also in the Bendigo electorate. You cannot go to a town hall, into a community space or into a school in the Bendigo electorate without seeing somewhere on the wall an honour board remembering the young men and women who made the ultimate sacrifice in the First World War. Many of the boards featuring these men and women were recognised through the Centenary of Anzac Grants Program. I want to acknowledge the hard work of our historical societies, our schools and our RSLs, which put forward great projects. I also want to acknowledge the great work that was done by the network of RSLs in the Bendigo electorate that worked hard to ensure that our local stories were remembered.

In the lead up to Anzac Day this year, there was rolling coverage in our media, not to glorify war but to remember the local story. In Bendigo, what we endeavoured to do was to remember not the uniform but to remember the person, to remember the son, to remember the husband, to remember the brothers and the uncles, to remember the daughters and the wives. What we tried to do in Bendigo was very similar to what many tried to do around Australia—that was, to remember the person, to remember who they were before they put the uniform on. It is through knowing that personal story, the personal grief and the personal heartbreak that we may never forget.

Like most Anzac Day commemorations around the country, Bendigo electorate had the largest turnout that we have seen in a long time. At the dawn services, there were lots of locals of all ages attending to pay their respects. In Bendigo, it was the long largest dawn service that we have had for some years. On Mount Macedon, it was the largest dawn service that we had had for some years. Despite the cold and the rain, people gathered. What I took from being part of these services was that people were there not to glorify war but to pay their respects. People were there to remember the stories, to learn the stories and to pass on the stories.

In the lead up to Anzac Day and in marking this significant event in our nation's calendar, the community of Eaglehawk came together and had honour boards in all of its shop windows. Each honour board told the story of a barrow boy and what he had done. It included the Victoria Cross medal winner. In Kyneton, they remembered at the dawn service at Mount Macedon by telling the stories through the letters that these young men had written to their mothers and to their sisters.

One of the projects funded through the Centenary of Anzac project I wish to highlight in my contribution tonight is the Centenary of Anzac tram, which was launched and started running in Bendigo on Anzac Day. This tram tells the Bendigo story. It is a tourist tram. At 10 o'clock every day it leaves the depot. It is known as the talking tram. It has been restored to its original 1915 decor and it is lined on the inside with the stories of local Bendigo men and women who left Bendigo to fight in the First World War. It includes the stories of brothers. It includes the stories of husbands. And it includes the stories of some of our brave nurses, who did their original training at the Bendigo Base Hospital before embarking for overseas.

I just thought I would share with you some of the stories that this tram tells as it rolls through the streets of Bendigo, trying to help the people who take part of this journey to step back in time and understand the stories. On the tram, it marks and acknowledges the day that the telegram arrived at the Bendigo Town Hall. The mayor had received the official declaration, and the councillors responded to the news:

This council expresses its unswerving loyalty to the British throne, and its full approval of the action of the Commonwealth and State Governments in their endeavours to assist the British government in the Great War now in progress. It expresses its assurance to … render every support in its power to the Government in the dispatch of … force.

After that was declared at the town hall, the next day there were lines of volunteers.

What I remember the most about the Centenary of Anzac in my electorate during April is the number of great-nephews and great-nieces who stood up and told their great-uncles' stories—why they signed up, and who they were. I met the great-niece of HHH. His name was Herbert Humphreys Hunter. At the time that he signed up, he was a dentist in Bendigo. He was also a great athlete, and he had his dentist chair underneath the Hotel Shamrock. The people who are journeying through town and hearing the words of his great-great-niece share his experience and why he signed up to war.

Some of the other stories that the tram mentions include a letter that was written by Sister Jean Bisset, from Bendigo, which shares one of her many heart-wrenching experiences as a nurse involved in the war. This was a letter home in 1915. Here are her words in her letter:

I simply cannot write about the wounded. I never thought there were such patience and goodness left in the world. With their awful gaping wounds, and with nearly every bone in their body broken, every nerve gone to pieces and perhaps having almost bled to death on the field, they will help themselves off the stretchers on to the beds, and they will thank you for any little thing you do for them.

I wish to acknowledge the special efforts made by our local RSL to remember the women involved in the war. In Bendigo, we had a number of young women sign up as nurses, train at the Bendigo Base and go to war.

In Bendigo, we could speak for hours and days of the personal stories of the men and women who left our farms, our schools and our neighbourhoods to go and fight in the First World War. What I would like to end on is a letter—a letter that was written to an unknown soldier who did not return. It is a letter that was read at a special ceremony in Bendigo to mark the beginning of our Centenary of Anzac. It reads:

Dear Unknown Soldier

When war was declared, you and thousands of other young men and women signed up on the promise of a great overseas adventure.

…   …   …

I know that we live in peace and security because of you, a peace that you created for us but may never have experienced.

What I cannot know is the horrors you have seen, the relentless fear that you faced and dealt with hundreds of times, and the courage that allowed you to overcome your fears and respond to the call to attack.

I also cannot know the exhaustion you faced, the despair of endless days without hope, the utter sadness of seeing your comrades die around you and the desolation of spirit that must have stalked you through all your days, both during battle and after you came home.

Thank you for sacrificing your life, your happiness, your peace of mind and your future, whether or not you returned, so that I—

and my generation—

have the incredible privilege of enjoying the life you made possible but could never fully live yourself.

With humility and hope my generation—

will not live with the scars that you have and—

… that another generation will not live with the scars of war.

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