Scott Buchholz (Wright, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

The 100th anniversary of the landing at Gallipoli is a significant event. To acknowledge and understand the 100 years journey that we have just been on, tonight I want to deliver a speech that, hopefully, will enlighten someone who reads this speech in 100 years time. So, in preparing, I have gone back and grabbed some statistics from 100 years ago so that we can understand the transition as a country and as a nation that we have made.

Before I do that: my electorate of Wright is predominantly an agricultural seat, based from the Gold Coast to Toowoomba. There is deep history in my electorate, as there is in those of all of the members of this place. I want to thank the Anzacs, who gave such a commitment to our country, who gave the ultimate sacrifice and who provided a blanket of security for us as a nation for us to sleep under each night so that today we enjoy the pleasures we do, unfortunately due to the sacrifices of the brave men and women who went before us. I want to associate my comments tonight with some of the heartfelt commentary that has gone before me tonight from previous speakers about bravery and the accolades that need to be bestowed upon those brave men and women.

If you are reading this speech in 100 years time, let me take you on a journey. A hundred years ago, Australia was a young nation in more ways than one. Our average age was 24. That was the average age in our country. Today it is 37. Back then, the census showed that the Northern Territory had the oldest median age of 41, with Tasmania the youngest, with a median age of 22.4, so 100 years ago Tasmania was the frontier for our youth. A century later, it is completely reversed, with Tasmania now being our oldest state, with a median age of 40.8, and the Northern Territory, at 31.5, the youngest. Today, the Northern Territory provides opportunity and a haven for those with an element of excitement about them—fishing, tourism, a high income. In Australia in 1915, those aged 65 were classified as being of old age. How about that! Sixty-five was considered to be old. This week we gave tribute to a member of this parliament who passed away. His age was 62, and by all definition in this House we referred to him as a man who passed away way too early at the age of 62.

The average household today has two fewer people than it did in 1915. There was an average household occupancy of 4.5 people; today it is down to 2.6. It will be interesting to see what it looks like in the future. Back in 1915, Sydney was the city where most Aussies resided. However, Adelaide today has twice the population that Sydney did back then. As many people live in Sydney today, 4.9 million, as lived in the whole of Australia 100 years ago.

A loaf of bread would have cost you 3½ pence. A loaf of bread today will cost you around $2.50. Milk has gone from threepence to $1.50. However, land prices' rise has been even more significant. For example, blocks in newly developed suburbs were around 200 pounds, compared to around $600,000 today. You can only quantify what land prices may be into the future.

Irrespective of whether we talk about 100 years ago or we talk about today or we talk about what our country will look like in 100 years time, I advocate that the spirit of Anzac will live on forever. The spirit of Anzac that is being embraced by our younger generation is most comforting. Our Anzac Day parades around our national cities, our national capitals and our regional communities are exponentially growing, year in, year out. Our education system focuses on the contribution that our Anzacs made, and I hope that that will remain the case into the future.

To cite some of those examples in my electorate: on Anzac Day I had the opportunity to attend a community called Beechmont. Beechmont is a small community in the Gold Coast hinterland. They celebrated their Anzac Day somewhat differently, but it was rich with emotion. They celebrated by finding the descendants of those from their community who had gone to war and had not come back, and, for each person from their community, one of their family descendants got up and spoke passionately about what their role was in their community before they left, before they went away to war. It was a heartfelt ceremony in a community that is connected to the spirit of the Anzacs—a tradition in that community that I know will live on because there was not a dry eye, 100 years on, from those descendants who gave accolades to those brave people.

Anzac Day is also an opportunity for us to remember those soldiers who have been involved in conflict who may not have returned as well as they should have. At the Mount Tamborine Anzac Day service for the Anzac Centenary, I had the opportunity to meet a soldier who had been a commando in the Australian forces who was suffering the with the most debilitating illness—not physical, but mental. His stature was one of a very fit, buff, intimidating figure; obviously, he still keeps up his fitness regime. But he came and approached me and he shared with me some of the stories of how he—still today—suffers from the conflicts that he was involved in. And it reminded me that Anzac Day should be not only about remembering those magnificent sacrifices but also about remembering those who made a contribution to war, in whatever way that might have been, and then returned home to their communities—and that sometimes, we as a nation should have been more mature. We should have been more gracious.

I am currently reading a book, written from an Australian domestic perspective, about some of the conflicts that existed internally—in particular, those on the wharves of the then union movement who hampered the transition of medical supplies to our troops, and who raided the personal sacks of soldiers going off to conflict—for cigarettes and other goods. I hope that we as a country have matured since then, and learned from our mistakes there. The last 100 years for us have been something to celebrate for the bravery of those that have gone before. I hope that into the future, we as a nation learn from that. Evidence is already indicating that we are embracing the spirit of Anzac. We are truly embracing it. And we as a nation should be proud of that.

I want to acknowledge in my closing comments the contributions of some friends of mine who assisted with the grants program in my electorate, and who are ex-servicemen in their own right—chairman, Gordon French, and committee members, Marcus Bruty, Brian Ranse and Simon Warner: for your contributions to overseeing, from a commercial perspective, the federal government's grants to help communities commemorate the Anzac Centenary. I thank you so much for your diligence and for the commercial experience that you brought to that process.

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