Laurie Ferguson (Werriwa, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I will show how small a world this is. I will make sure that before Jane Carrick puts me under anaesthetic in two weeks time I will convey the comments of the member for Berowra in regard to her farther.

At the outset I want to recognise the work of two RSLs in my electorate: Ingleburn and the city of Liverpool. Every year they support the work of John Baron and the Victory in the Pacific Committee in making sure this occurrence is remembered. It is quite appropriate that on their invitation letter they have that iconic photograph of the New Zealand citizen helping a blinded Australian soldier.

I will speak on a number of aspects of this, but not all are necessarily connected. Before I turn to Australia, I note the courage of Japan's Emperor Akihito in recent weeks in commemorating the Second World War when he chose, in a very deliberately way, to make a different point from Japanese Prime Minister Abe in regard to Japan's responsibility in the Second World War. Akihito spoke of deep remorse and a deep and renewed sense of sorrow about what had occurred. It was in contrast to Prime Minister Abe's comment:

The peace we enjoy today exists only upon such precious sacrifices. And therein lies the origin of postwar Japan.

Some people have seen that as a comment which, in a way, perhaps only stressed the Japanese wartime contributions and did not in any way recognise Japan's responsibility in regard to the Second World War.

I want to also make sure that I put on the record my continued association with people who think that it is overdue that the Japanese recognise one particular aspect of this—the exploitation of women for sexual purposes for Japanese forces in the Second World War. We are talking about a situation where approximately 200,000 women were utilised and supposed to undertake an average of 25 to 30 sexual activities a day. They were of varied ethnicity—Japanese, Korean, Chinese and to a lesser extent Taiwanese, Burmese, Indonesian, Australian and Dutch.

It is worth saying that, whilst some countries have chosen to see the rosy side of in Abe's words as being an indication of some movement, I think that the South Korean President was quite correct in saying that Japan has not gone far enough. I appreciate that China, to some extent, tries to exploit these issues for its own current geopolitical purposes, but there is a need for Japan to respond, to act and to recognise its contributions in regard to that war and the treatment of both war prisoners and servicewomen in that conflict. Earlier this year 187 historians called on Japan's government to 'show leadership by addressing Japan's history of colonial rule and wartime aggression in both words and actions'.

Of course, we should also remember the devastating loss of human life in the firebombing of Tokyo and the dropping of nuclear weapons on Nagasaki and Hiroshima—the later cases were estimated to have killed at least 150,000 people. It remains the subject of international debate as to how necessary that was. Some, such as Gore Vidal, put forward that the position that the Japanese peace party was stronger than the Western powers have tended to indicate and that perhaps it was not necessary and was meant as a warning to the Soviet Union about the United States' position on nuclear weapons.

Of course, this war impacted deeply upon the country. Last year I went to Broome. I am typical of many Australians in that I had no knowledge of the Japanese's attacks on that town and the airfields and of the evacuation of Dutch refugees from the Japanese seizure of Java. I think we are still unaware of how many died in Darwin, because of the number of Aboriginal Australians who were basically wandering and unaccounted for. Then there were the attacks on Sydney Harbour in 1942. When we look at the number of places attacked—Derby, Port Hedland, Horn Island, Townsville, Katherine, Wyndham—it is quite extensive. I think that younger Australians have no appreciation of the degree to which the Australian mainland was affected, with Japanese forces landing on at least one occasion here for reconnaissance.

It was a period of very major national effort. On a personal basis, I am probably rare in having had both my father and his father involved in the Second World War. In both cases they cheated on their age to participate. My grandfather had been a gunner in the British forces in the First World War. He put his age down by three years to participate in the Second World War and he went to the Middle East. My father allegedly came crying from an enlistment post because he was not allowed to go. He was only 18 and they had increased the age to 19 in 1943. He was involved in the Pacific. His life was very much affected by this. For years later one of the big events would be Anzac Day and those friendships, that comradeship from the Second World War were instrumental in his life.

A previous speaker referred to the Commonwealth rehabilitation scheme. That was in a period when there was concern that the unemployment figure, after all of the wartime absences from the country, had started to lift to three per cent—today we would probably wish it was three per cent. As they left service, veterans were given a medical examination. A mental rehabilitation officer provided information about benefits eligible to veterans and training courses were available. Eventually 270,000-odd Australians got to university, technical or rural training courses. The case of my father was typical of so many of those people after the Second World War who had left employment at a very early age in the depression and who had not had trades. He got the opportunity thereby to go into the building trade, to get a skill to eventually be able to create a lifestyle for his family in this country.

I think it is important to remember the efforts of those governments at the conclusion of the Second World War that actually made sure that people were not forgotten and operated a rehabilitation scheme both in regards to employment and in regards to payments. That scheme provided for veterans with a disability not caused by military service while the Repatriation Commission oversaw the building of new hospitals to treat tuberculosis and mental disorders.

As I said, I want to recognise the fact that Australia's own citizens were directly affected and the fact that it entailed such a tremendous national effort not only for the soldiers at war but also for various people that were in protected occupations that were necessary for the war effort. Schools in Sydney were evacuation centres and all of that deeply informed the psyche of the Australian people.

It is also worth remembering some of the paranoia that affected this country in the Second World War to the detriment of ethnic minorities. We had a situation where Lutheran ministers were jailed as supposed Nazi sympathisers—one of whom, ironically, was a convert from Judaism, but they still thought he might be a Nazi sympathiser. The member for Berowra referred to living at Bronte. I met leaders of Sydney's Jewish community, who advised me that they were not allowed to live on the coastline in Sydney and had to live out at Wentworthville past Parramatta because we thought they might signal German submarines. There were anti-Japanese riots at Guildford—the suburb I come from—because a Japanese nurseryman had married an Anglo-Saxon years before and had created a very valuable business in Old Guildford and there was an anti-Japanese feeling towards him. He had married an Australian and had children who had featured in local newspapers during their family festivities.

I want to recognise the effort in the Second World War not only of the soldiers involved, not only of the sailors or air personnel, but of the large numbers of other portions of the Australian community, the sacrifices they made and the fact that some RSLs in Sydney still try to ensure that it is not forgotten.

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