Bob Katter (Kennedy, Independent) Share this | Hansard source

My great-granddad, Henley, and his brother both wanted to go to war—the First World War—but, as with so many other Australian families, one of them had to stay home to look after the family business. So they tossed a coin, and I am only here today because my great-granddad lost the toss. His brother, Bert Henley, went to Gallipoli. Fifteen days after the landing he was shot dead at Gallipoli. He is still at Gallipoli and will always be at Gallipoli. In a terrible twist of fate, Bert Henley's namesake, my grandmother's brother, joined up and went to Singapore with the 8th Division. He was captured and, whilst he survived the war, his health was wrecked and he died some years after the war.

I think the most poignant scene I have ever seen in a movie—and I love my movies—was in Saving Private Ryan. In the first scene the camera is behind the mother. She is standing in the doorway and two men pull up in a black car and walk up the driveway. They hand her a telegram telling her that three of her sons were dead. All that is in a person's body that keeps them upright dissolved out of her body and she crumbled into the floor. I cannot see that scene without thinking of my great-great-grandmother, who would have stood at the door and got the telegram. My great-grandmother also stood in a doorway and got the telegram.

One of my very good friends, Tommy McIvor, a famous roughrider, wrote a beautiful song called 21 Guns. I think it is probably one of the finest songs in recent years, published in Australia. The last stanza of the song goes:

Now the angel of death with his knock at the door.

The crumpled up telegram falls to the floor.

Her reason for livin is livin no more, as she cries for the pride of Australia.

There are a couple of excellent books out on the First World War and I am reading one at the moment. It says that it really answers the question as to why there was a First World War. I am halfway through it, and I cannot agree with the dust jacket. I am still at a bit of a loss as to why we were fighting in the First World War. There is no doubt that the Balkans were falling apart and the great land grabs of the colonial powers were on, and that had a lot to do with it.

One of the many great things about Napoleon Bonaparte was that he destroyed monarchy throughout the world. Monarchy made a sort of comeback, but what was left of it vanished in the maws and the jaws of the cannons of the First World War. I suppose in looking for some logic in the death of my great-grandfather's brother, my great-great uncle, at least we got rid of the dreadful system of monarchy. Either you believe that all people are born equal or you don't. Of course, if you don't then monarchy is a good idea. You want to have a look at the First World War if you think monarchies are a good idea. If you are really looking for a reason for that war then I think the base reason was the ego of the monarchs of Europe at the time.

In trying to find some sanity out of what is, of course, the ultimate insanity, I found the Second World War to be in sharp contrast to the First World War, because it was a war where you were fighting real, genuine evil. I personally could see no alternative than to fight that evil. Once again, in almost all the pictures from my family on all sides—my mother's side and my father's side—every single person was in uniform. There were about 20 or 30 cousins and brothers and sisters—even all the women were in uniform—and you think: all those people were under the threat of dying. Sadly, for my Great-Uncle Bert, it resulted in his death. If there is a sanity to come out this war then it is that we can learn some lessons from what took place there. To simply say, 'We are British and we will do what you tell us, Mother England,' was a dreadful mistake. It cost the lives of something like one in 40 of the entire Australian population. I do not have any doubts with that figure, because amongst the forebears of my own grandchildren there are five people who served at Gallipoli, and I think they should all be very, very proud of that.

In the Second World War, when we were at war with Indonesia, I was in the 49th Battalion. I was the unit historian. I had to write up the history of our battalion. We were one of three battalions that were sent up to stop the Japanese. I went to see the major, and I said: 'Look, Major, I have difficulty here. Every single reference to us in the Second World War is that we fell back, we failed to hold ground, we retreated, we were ill prepared, we were untrained. Every single comment is negative.' He said, 'Well, what are you going to do, Katter?' I said: 'I'm not prepared to write that down about my own battalion. I am going to try and cast around and see if I can find some positives.' I went down to the RSL and I said to an old digger there, 'Mate, do you know anyone in the 49th Battalion in the Second World War?' He said: 'No, I don't. But I'll tell you one thing about them. They were the ones that copped it worst. When they were on leave to Sanananda, after fighting their way across the Owen Stanleys'—the Kokoda Track as most of us know it—'only 28 out of 1,000 men were able to walk out unassisted from their trenches.' To this very day, I can feel the rage rise in me. For those of you who have played football or for those of you who have been in the army, you have a particular relationship with your platoon or your battalion. They were men just like me. In fact, my father and my Uncle Billy served in the 49th and 9th. Billy was in the 9th when it went to Milne Bay and imposed upon the Japanese the first defeat in 800 years of land warfare. As Australians, we can be enormously proud.

Let me just return to Kokoda. This is the situation: General Mackay goes into the cabinet room and says, 'If they take Port Moresby there is no way of stopping the invasion of Australia.' They were 10 days march from Port Moresby. We sent up three battalions that were completely ill trained and one Bren gun. In military terms, if there is no machine gun, you do not have a section. If you do not have any machine guns, you do not have a platoon or a battalion. So, technically, we did not exist. There was one Bren gun for the 9th Battalion when it went up there. So we are going to stop the Japanese with one Bren gun, were we? That was rather interesting. Here is the greatest military force the world had ever seen—800 years undefeated in land warfare. They had beaten the Chinese. They had beaten the Americans, outnumbered two to one. They had beaten the British, outnumbered three to one. And they were coming to take Australia.

Let there be absolutely no doubt about that. In my book, I was able to research it and say very definitively that they were on their way to Australia. I titled my book An Incredible Race of People. What an incredible race of people! Three battalions had been sent up with one machine gun to stop the Japanese. We did. We not only stopped them but turned them back, and they never moved forward again. So today we pay tribute to those great men. I am very proud to say and sad to say that some of my forebears were amongst them. None of those descendants are with us today. They died.

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