Joe Hockey (North Sydney, Liberal Party, Treasurer) Share this | Hansard source

One hundred years on—just three generations in human terms, it is still hard to come to terms with the tragedy and the triumph that was Gallipoli. As a strategic initiative it was a tragedy—a failure in almost every military sense. As a marker of the courage, fortitude, and sheer determination of the human spirit it was a triumph, one out of which so much which is unique to us as Australians was forged.

In June 1915 ANZAC troops were poised between the great events of the Gallipoli campaign. Their minds must have gone back to those days in the previous November when they had set forth from the port of Albany, escorted by three warships—HMAS Sydney, HMAS Melbourne and the Japanese cruiser HIJMS Ibukion what they expected to be some sort of great adventure fighting in Europe for King and country. They had enlisted in their thousands.

They went with songs to the battle, they were young,

Straight of limb, true of eye, steady and aglow.

They were farewelled by parades in every town, village and hamlet, all of which were to suffer from their loss and none of which would ever be the same again. They did not expect to be landed on the beaches of an unknown and barely heard of land but, true to their oaths and their honour, they landed and they fought. It did not take long for them to come face to face with the realities of war.

On 25 April they had struggled up from the beaches into the scrub and the gullies and the fierce terrain. They had heard that Albert Jacka had won Australia's first Victoria Cross at Courtney's Post on 19 May. Then on 24 May they had paused for one terrible day in an armistice so that they and the Turks could clear the dead from the field to make it easier to resume the fighting. The staggering British losses at the three battles of Krithia were fresh in their minds, and their own extraordinary tests at Lone Pine, Chunuk Bair and the Nek, where seven more Victoria Crosses were to be won, lay but a few weeks ahead. It is staggering to recount the casualties of these few brief months: 44,150 Allied soldiers lost their lives and 141,547 became casualties. Of the dead, 8,709 were Australians and 2,779 New Zealanders. They now lay alongside the British, Irish, French, Indians and Newfoundlanders who had fallen. They had mixed for the first time with trenchers from Newfoundland, not then part of Canada; with a large contingent of Indian soldiers of the King-Emperor; with the French, about whom they had heard many curious tales; and even with a mule corps composed entirely of Zionists fighting under the Star of David flag—the first such corps for 2,000 years. Across but such a little space were to lie 86,692 Turkish dead out of a quarter of a million casualties. If anything, they were even younger than the Anzacs who fought them. But they were fighting for their fatherland and had no understanding of the forces or comprehension of the politics which had brought so many enemies from so far away to their home shores. On all sides the killing was brutal, the suffering indescribable, the courage exemplary and the camaraderie magnificent.

One feature of the Great War was the number of serving parliamentarians who were accorded leave of absence from their seats and who went to fight. Nine sitting members of this parliament served. One of those was Granville de Laune Ryrie, later Sir Granville Ryrie, the then Liberal member for North Sydney—my predecessor. Born in 1865—exactly 100 years before my birth—in Michelago, Ryrie had served in the Boer War. He landed at Gallipoli on 19 May 1915. On 29 April he was severely wounded and was evacuated. He returned to duty and was wounded a second time in December. Again he returned to duty, serving in Syria, taking part in the battle of Beersheba, where he rode a horse provided to him by the people of North Sydney. He went on to serve in Egypt and rose to the rank of Major General. It is ironic that my own grandfather, who had reportedly been a spy for the Catholic church, was sent by the British to rebuild Beersheba after the member for North Sydney had taken it as part of the everlastingly great charge of the Light Horse on Beersheba in 1917. Granville Ryrie served this House as the Liberal member for North Sydney from 1911 to 1917. He then sat as a Nationalist until 1922, when he was elected to the new seat of Warringah—currently held by the Prime Minister. He served as Assistant Minister for Defence and later as High Commissioner in London, and then as the Australian delegate to the League of Nations. He died in 1937.

Two future prime ministers served at Gallipoli, Stanley Melbourne Bruce and Clement Atlee—as, of course, did the founding president of modern Turkey, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk. That Australia and Turkey have, since those bloody and terrible days, forged a close relationship says much about the men who fought and the men who made peace, which they hoped would prevent the carnage ever happening to their children and those beyond. That they were disappointed in this hope should remind us to be ever vigilant to ensure that there is no recrudescence of the precursors of war: hatred, intolerance, economic despair and political tyranny. It is sobering that but a stone's throw from the shores of Gallipoli we are witnessing such a conflict again in our time—one which contains within it so much to put us in peril once again.

Despite its centrality for us as a nation, Gallipoli was but a sideshow in a far greater and utterly more terrible conflagration caused by an act of fanaticism and a failure of statesmanship. Before peace was restored, 10 million soldiers and seven million civilians had died and 20 million had suffered as casualties. In that time, old, great and historic nations and dynasties ceased to exist. New and fragile nations were born, and millions of colonised people —without their consent—gained different destinies and new masters, including Australians. A way of life that had developed and been sustained for generations was obliterated and a new paradigm settled across the face of the planet. All the old truths ceased to be true. Class and gender relationships were changed inexorably and forever.

A young nation—ours—lost its sense of innocence. It committed itself to the conflagration—to the last man and the last shilling—because that is what it meant to be part of the great Empire. It poured its blood into the soils of the Dardanelles, the sands of the Middle East, the jungles of Papua and the mud of the Western Front. It rose to the challenge with heroism based on mateship and stout hearts. It produced soldiers, nurses and commanders of rare courage, tenacity and true grit. It is that spirit and those men and women that we remember and we honour today. It emerged scarred, shaken and changed. But as a nation we had a new sense of self and a new confidence in our destiny.

In a time when we are reminded that fanaticism and irrationality still lurk like some evil and malign demon all too close, all too willing to take life and all too threatening to the skills of statesmen and stateswomen and politicians, we should more than ever proclaim: never again!

I know these speeches will be marked in history. I say to those that follow me both as the member for North Sydney and through the generations beyond: for so long as we have breath as Australians, we will never forget.

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