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

It gives me great pleasure to be able to speak on and about the 70th Anniversary of the end of the war in the Pacific. I do not recall it, but I know that my father's and mother's families do. My father was overseas at the time, in New Guinea. On 15 August 1945, you can imagine the elation when radios in homes across Australia crackled with the news, as Prime Minister Ben Chifley announced the end of the war against Japan:

Fellow citizens, the war is over.

The Japanese Government has accepted the terms of surrender imposed by the Allied Nations and hostilities will now cease. …

At this moment let us offer thanks to God.

Let us remember those whose lives were given that we may enjoy this glorious moment and may look forward to a peace which they have won for us.

Indeed, it was a peace which they won for us. In the days that followed, a war-weary nation breathed a sigh of relief and began to celebrate in the cities and towns and hamlets across this great country of ours.

We well recall the history. The war in the Pacific began with the attack on Pearl Harbor in December 1941. With the fall of Singapore in February 1942, it became very clear to all Australians, I am certain, what the threat really was and how the war might soon come to our shores. And then, four days after the fall of Singapore, on 19 March 1942, bombs fell for the first time on Australian soil, when Darwin was attacked in the first of 64 raids. The last raid was on 12 November 1943. During those 21 months the Japanese bombed other towns, including Broome four times and Townsville three times. Others included Katherine, Batchelor and Milingimbi in the Northern Territory; Mossman in North Queensland; and Wyndham, Port Hedland, Onslow, Exmouth and Derby in Western Australia.

The North felt the brunt of this attack, of these Japanese bombing raids. The reasons were fairly apparent. The Japanese, whether or not they were seeking to invade our country, were clearly trying to prevent Australian and Allied forces operating out of bases in the North that could launch counteroffensives into the Netherlands East Indies—now Indonesia—with its rich supplies of oil. The raids were, in that sense, pre-emptive and could not be seen as part of any invasion. In May 1942 United States and Australian aircraft clashed with Japanese planes over the Coral Sea and, later in June, the Battle of Midway put a check on Japan.

The Northern Territory felt the brunt of the war effort acutely. The Stuart Highway—dirt, as it was—became the main avenue for troop reinforcements into the North and out of Australia. Camps were set up in Alice Springs, Katherine and Adelaide River. Darwin was an occupied town, in terms of the military presence. Citizens were evacuated south, and Australians were put under greater movement controls than at any time since the convict era. There have never been, since then, such controls. Some of them included such things as restricting sporting events. Exmouth's Christmas and New Year holidays were limited to three days only. Blackouts and brownouts were obligatory for cities and coastal areas, including Darwin and Katherine. Daylight saving was mandatory. There were increased call-ups of the militia. There was the issue of personal identity cards. There was the increased enlistment of women in auxiliary and nursing forces. There was a fixing of profit margins for industry.

There were restrictions on the cost allowed for building and renovation. There was the setting of some women's pay rates at near male levels because of the work they were then doing for the war. There were controls put on the cost of dresses and other price-pegging. There was a rationing of clothing, footwear, tea, butter and sugar. There was the banning of the Communist Party and the Australia First Movement for their opposition to the war. We also saw the formation of the wonderful Women's Land Army. That generation that fought and worked for Australia through the Pacific War is passing. Those children who lived through the rationing, shortages, price controls and absent fathers and can remember the experience are well passed retirement age. My generation—and, I am, certain subsequent generations—are eternally grateful to them. We have all become the beneficiaries of the reforms that commenced as Australia was put on alert for total war.

The end of the war brought great hope and enthusiasm for progress—a promise to rebuild Australia that had been marred by the Depression, war and drought; a promise to get on with the work left undone since Federation. All through the Pacific War the Labor governments of John Curtin and Ben Chifley concentrated on the kind of Australia it wanted once the fighting was over. They were ably assisted by some really outstanding public servants, one of whom I worked with closely for a number of years in the late seventies and early eighties. That of course was Dr H. C. 'Nugget' Coombs, who was crucial and central to rationing during the war and the postwar reconstruction and to the economic policies that were adopted by both the Curtin and Chifley governments.

It became clear during that period that Australia could no longer rely on selling primary products to pay for its industrial imports, and the boom and bust cycle of economic activity had to be addressed. The commitment to full employment and low inflation became a key government responsibility. The war transformed the Australian economy. Construction of aircraft, mass production of small arms and the fashioning of precision instruments and machine tools required more skilled trades, and education was subsequently changed to meet those requirements. We built a very extensive and important manufacturing base.

My generation benefited from a high school and university education—something beyond the means of my parents, whose school years were lived through the grim years of the 1930's Depression. After the war we saw great initiatives such as the Snowy Mountains Scheme and many other projects. The Pacific War was also a watershed for women.    Large numbers of women entered the workforce, whereas previously they were unemployed. But at war's end many felt frustration as the skills and confidence they acquired in the workforce were looked down upon as the expectation was that women would depart from those jobs and return to be homemakers. Not all women wanted to return to their old situation.

The war also brought about changes in terms of health reform. Many great changes were initiated as a result of what happened during that war period. No doubt others in this debate will refer to those great battles of Kokoda and Milne Bay, the war in the Dutch East Indies and in Timor, the operation of 'Z' force, those courageous men many of whose lives were lost as a result of the fall of Singapore, and the captured Australian soldiers who died at the hands of the Japanese in Changi and other places as prisoners of war. One cannot underestimate the impact that the war had on Australia.

When we talk about current conflicts, we know that, when our returned men and women come back from those conflicts, they will be well looked after. Sadly, this was not the case after the Second World War. Whilst we pay a lot of regard to issues such as post-traumatic stress and other matters that have evolved from our knowledge regarding the impact of war on the mental health of individuals, there was not that recognition after the Second World War—at least not as widely as it should have been. Many of my own family, including my father and my uncles, were war veterans. After the war, we saw the rise of returned organisations and unit organisations, and they offered support to one another. I vividly recall hearing stories about people being 'in the horrors'. 'In the horror's was a description of people who were mentally affected by the war, and treatment was not as readily available or as extensive as it is today.

During this conflict, those people who fought in the war in the Pacific sacrificed greatly for all of us, and the tens of thousands who marched in uniform on our behalf need to be remembered. We must acknowledge that whether or not you believe that there was to be an imminent invasion of Australia that without their work, their sacrifice, their courage and their effort, then we may well have lost the war in the Pacific. So it is important that we remember this 70th anniversary. There are things which most Australians, I do not think, are fully aware of.

In 1987 when I first got elected to this parliament I spoke in this place—although not in this chamber; in the chamber in Old Parliament House—about our obligations as a result of the Second World War to the people of what is now known as Timor Leste and East Timor. My father was a member of the 2/2nd Commandos. Although he did not serve with the 2/2nd in East Timor, the 2/2nd went to East Timor initially in December of 1941. They left roughly 12 months later. What was important about their contribution was that they actually quarantined a whole Japanese force by running a guerilla campaign in East Timor with very few casualties. They were reinforced in the second half of 1942 by the 2/4th.

Whilst we did not suffer many casualties in East Timor, as a direct result of the protection and camaraderie by the East Timorese, they lost tens of thousands of people, because they looked after, protected, hid and provided succour and support for Australian servicemen. So now we have Timor Leste as a partner, but we should all remember that we owe that country a great debt of honour which I do not think can ever properly be repaid. We can give recognition. We can support their government. We can provide aid but we can never replace the lives of those tens of thousands of people that were lost as a direct result of the Japanese occupation of East Timor.

So when we reflect upon this 70th anniversary, we understand our own pain and the pain of our families and their suffering. But let us also remember the suffering of others, the fall of Singapore—what a military disaster. But we were not the only ones who suffered. We had our troops and civilians in prison but, when the Japanese cascaded down the Malay Peninsula, it was not just Australian and British lives that were lost; there were the lives of the Malays and the Singaporeans. So it is, I think, important that we contemplate the whole of this, not just part. Certainly, its impact on Australia is very hard to define.

I should make the observation, because of where I live, that northern Australians had a particular part to play in this war and Aboriginal Australians and the people of the Torres Strait did most particularly. Aboriginal people became supporters and worked in uniform across northern Australia. The North Australia Observer Unit, the Nackeroos—later became in their modern iteration NORFORCE or Far North Queensland 51 Regiment and the Pilbara Regiment—had their battles. They worked for us in uniform as members of the Australian Defence community during the Second World War.

Significantly, post 1945, our corner of the Asia-Pacific region was no longer controlled by Britain, France and the Netherlands. Australia had to have a new outlook to deal with our soon-to-be independent neighbours, and of course it was also the dawn of the atomic age. The peace that Ben Chifley said we could look forward to has to a great extent been achieved but it has not been without its sacrifice since.

We have seen wars in Korea, Malaysia, Vietnam, the first and second Gulf wars and now the war in Afghanistan. We need to recognise again and remain vigilant in supporting our men and women in uniform for the job they do for us. We must ensure that, unlike for those vets of the Second World War initially who came home, we look after these men, women and their families on their return. Thank you.

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