Gavin Pearce (Braddon, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I'm honoured and humbled today to speak in support of this motion. My good mate the member for Herbert also acknowledged the member for Solomon and his service. On the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month each year, Australia pauses. We bow our heads and we reflect on the sacrifice that our veterans make and our defence personnel make in laying down their life for their country—one day a year. But for veterans and those who have served, those memories go a little further, and it's every day that we remember. Today, I simply want to share with you what I remember on Remembrance Day. In the months preceding my discharge from the Australian Regular Army, I was called to a civilian police station. They put me in the back of the car and took me to the hospital, down to the basement and to the morgue, where I was required, as a sergeant major of that unit, to identify one of my soldiers, who had taken his life in the early hours of the morning. It was a hard thing to do, but duty calls and you do your duty. I then returned to the unit, and the commanding officer and I called the rest of the unit together, and we broke that tragic news to those brothers and sisters that he had in the unit. I remember the look in their eyes and I remember how devastated they were. I then took six or eight of his closest mates down to his room in the lines and we packed his gear up—his personal effects, letters, iPod—and the Military Police made an inventory. I remember trying to work with those young blokes through that process. We packed his gear up and I told them to keep one uniform out, his special uniform, and later on I would take that back to the funeral director where I helped the funeral director dress him in his polyester uniform. I remember standing there and telling him that I was sorry that I didn't see this, that I didn't recognise it, and 15 years later I'm still sorry.

I remember the funeral where those eight mates carried their friend to his final resting place, in a coffin draped in the Australian national flag, with his slouch hat, his bayonet and accoutrements, and I remember the look in their eyes. I remember the sound of The Last Post, and, every time I've heard it since, I remember all the funerals that I have attended. I remember, at the conclusion of the funeral, folding the Australian national flag, and I accompanied the commanding officer and we presented it to the next of kin, and I remember the look in that mother's eyes as she took that flag and she clenched it. She knew that that flag was the only thing that she had of her own flesh and blood, her precious son. I guarantee you it's more often than Remembrance Day that she remembers. It's every day and every night. That is why this rolling commissioner and their role to be there every day, day in day out, is so important. Yes, we could have a royal commission, a one-off thing. But this will go on every day, and we need to be there to protect them.

The other point I make is about the effects on a family; not only the military family but the personal family. I think back to that mother, and I applaud and support the national family advocate which was co-announced with the national commission, because families are important. I thank my brothers that are here today. We'll always be brothers in the military. Lest we forget.

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