Barnaby Joyce (New England, National Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise today to support this motion and note it not only is applicable on a census but also honours families. My family has had a long history in the Defence Force. My father came from New Zealand but my grandfather on the other side was obviously an Australian. My grandfather on my father's side started at the very bottom, a regular in the artillery. He went through the First World War—through Gallipoli and the Western Front, where he got a DCM. Between the wars, he maintained himself and stayed full time with the Army. In the Second World War, he was chasing the Japanese around the Pacific, right up to Guadalcanal. At one stage, he got a DCM, a Distinguished Conduct Medal, for bravery under fire on the Western Front. He arrived at Gallipoli on the first day and left on the last. All the way through, he had a distinguished career. At one stage in the Second World War, he was declared missing. In fact, they went to my grandmother and told her that he was missing only for him to be later discovered. I think the story was he was in a boat with two Islanders, they discovered where to find an island and got the boat they were in back there. He had a distinguished career. My father was repatriated after getting smashed up; an anti-aircraft gun was on a crane and it swung back and hit him against a wall, taking out his leg. He was on embarkation at the Italian Peninsula. My other grandfather was in the Air Force, but he was a wireless operator on the Western Front. He joined when he was 16, and he looked 16. He lied to go off to war. My grandmother—she was English—had seven brothers who were all killed over a range of conflicts, so the story goes. What this means is it's not only within a nation but within families themselves, which have a strong connection to the Defence Force.

For my very, very, very small part, I joined the Army Reserve—1809842 is my rego number. That was just really to show that you did your bit, knowing full well the only thing below me in the Army Reserve was a boiled potato. I recognise that. But still, I think it is important that everybody does their bit. Therefore, I think it's important for the nation that, if you believe in this country, you've got to put your money where your mouth is. Obviously, service for your nation is something that's incredibly important. Other people do it in other ways. They might do it in charity groups. They might do it in the police force. They do other things that take that next step, because this nation is made up of three different groups of people. One group of people throw papers out the window of a car because they really don't care about the nation, and they're always going to be with us and there's nothing you can do about them. There's another group of people who complain about the papers that are out on the road and talk about how bad other people are. But then there's a special group of people who go out and pick up the papers and don't complain about it. It's the paper picker-uppers in our nation which make this nation a strong place, and a big group of them are people who serve in our Defence Force because they are doing extra, beyond what is asked of them. We see them all around and a lot of the times we don't recognise them. My partner's brother did ten years in the Navy. I know she had another brother who enlisted in the Army for a period. All these people really could have had greater opportunities had they just stayed on 'civi' street, had they stayed in many instances to go on and get a trade or to go to university. But there's something that inspires people for the sake of our nation to join up, as they'd say. So I think that this is a good move. I think it hopefully inspires other people to take that next step, because, unless we have people who are prepared to serve our nation and protect our nation, then, by the hard lesson of history, there will come a time where you won't have a nation because you'll have no-one to protect that nation. We can all see that, with the passing of Pax Americana—you'd have to say that that is happening—we're coming to a more precarious time. So, once more, we are going to have to, in a vastly more deliberate way, call on Australians, both men and women, to serve our nation so as our nation can be sustained.

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