Michael McCormack (Riverina, National Party, Shadow Minister for International Development and the Pacific) Share this | Hansard source

Last Friday at Jerilderie I had the enormous privilege and honour to deliver the thirteenth Monash oration. This speech is in honour of Sir General John Monash, 1865 to 1931. He was a soldier, a statesman and an engineer. He played a great part in the shaping of our nation, and he is remembered at Jerilderie, where he spent some of his early life. He is remembered right across this country, as he should be. I know the late great Tim Fischer had a special penchant for John Monash. Indeed, I have visited Sir John Monash's grave, his final resting place, at Brighton General Cemetery in Caulfield South. It's not far from the grave of John Chanter, who was the first member for Riverina in the federation parliament in 1901. These two great men played a large part in helping to define the Riverina and southern New South Wales in those formative years.

The grievance I have is what I told the audience at Jerilderie on Friday. It was disputed by somebody in the audience, in fact. I don't think this gentleman could quite believe the statistics that I read to the room. The Institute of Public Affairs did a survey. It was quite a large survey. We actually—

Well, you can rubbish it all you like, but the statistics are worrying. Member for Dunkley, I think you will agree with me that, when a survey of 1,000 Australians is conducted and the respondents are asked, 'If Australia was in the same position as Ukraine is now, would you stay and fight, or leave the country?' and the results are 'stay and fight' just 46 per cent, 'leave the country' 28 per cent and 'unsure' 26 per cent, adding the results for 'leave the country' and 'unsure' gives a very disturbing 54 per cent. Only 32 per cent of those aged 18 to 24 said they would stay and fight, 40 per cent said they would leave the country and 28 per cent were unsure; and 35 per cent of those aged 25 to 34 said that they would stay and fight, 38 per cent said that they would leave the country and 27 per cent were unsure.

Whether it's conducted by the IPA, Grattan Institute or whatever—it doesn't matter. I don't think the politics should come into it. Those statistics are worrying because it is a thousand people. We've probably swapped political leaders for less. Some of the poll figures used in this place as statistics or political weapons in question time and elsewhere, like down in the public press gallery, take the reflections of a lot fewer than a thousand people, I would say.

The survey also gave the statement, 'Given conflict in Ukraine and growing rivalry between countries in our region, the federal government should do more to teach schoolchildren to be proud of Australian history.' The results were: 'totally agree', 63 per cent—which is an encouraging figure—'totally disagree' 12 per cent; and 'unsure', 25 per cent. I know statistics can be used whichever way you like—there are lies, damn lies and statistics, as they say—but 'total disagree' and 'unsure' make up 37 per cent.

We should be proud of where we are as a nation. All too often, especially in this place, we talk down our nation. I don't, and I know the member for Mitchell doesn't, but all too often we have a bad habit of denigrating where we've come from, what we've done, what we've achieved and how it is that we've got to where we are in 2023. When you hear—and admittedly it's the IPA, but whoever conducted the survey, it was 1,000 young people, so you've got a large cohort saying this—that they would happily leave the country should the situation in Ukraine happen in Australia, and when 12 per cent totally disagree that there should be more teachings in school so that our children are proud of Australian history, that, to me, is something to be very worried about, and it's no wonder that it's my grievance.

In that room at Jerilderie last Friday night were 70 proud patriotic Australians. As I said, one gentleman actually interrupted my address, feeling that he couldn't believe both statistics, but they are true; they are right. They're not correct in terms of what the sentiment should be, but unfortunately and sadly they are what the IPA found. We need to teach in our schools the fact that we have been a proud nation, that we are a proud nation. We've got much to celebrate. On the night, I handed around a Dead Man's Penny. A Dead Man's Penny is a memorial plaque that was struck, and it was the medal from World War I that no family wanted. It was sent to all the families of those who were not coming home. As such, it was a replacement for the soldier who was never going to come home, buried in a foreign field. Many of them were known only unto God. I handed around the Dead Man's Penny for a young fellow, just 24 years old, by the name of William John Mason, from Dubbo. He died of wounds on 5 July 1916. He was a miner. He was somebody who gave his life for our country.

I am very proud, as we all should be, of our military. I know you served with distinction as well, Mr Deputy Speaker Wilkie, and you are well aware of Kapooka. It's a fine establishment, currently headed by Colonel Tim Stone. It turns out the best and the bravest of our soldiers, and I am proud to say that it's near my home town of Wagga Wagga. Indeed, as I often say, Wagga Wagga is the only regional inland centre of its size that's home to all three arms of Defence. We have the Royal Australian Air Force at Forest Hill. If you spend any time in the blue, you end up at Forest Hill; you end up at RAAF Wagga. We've even got a Navy base, which is a long way from the nearest drop of seawater, but we proudly have 80 or so personnel serving there.

Again, we should be proud of our military history, and indeed I am. We've had a Navy presence there since the early 1990s. We've had the Army there since the Second World War and indeed even before hostilities erupted in Europe between 1939 and '45. We had the Air Force taking over a property at Allonville near Forest Hill. But it was only the other day in my local paper—and it goes with the fact that young Australians are too ashamed to fight for their country—that we had an article from an academic, Jenna Price, decrying the investment we were making in defence and saying the money should be spent on social welfare. I think this is a terrible reflection as well, because we've got 80,000 job vacancies in regional Australia at the moment—80,000 jobs going begging for want of people to fill them. Yet we've got somebody from outside our region talking about all the money that we're spending on defence. I appreciate that we've had a $368 billion investment over the past week—and a good investment. And thanks to the Morrison government, that arrangement with AUKUS, with the United Kingdom and the United States, has been sealed. That arrangement with the submarines has been ratified. That is the strong defence investment that we made as a government. But, more than that, the editorial of that day's paper, just last Friday, on the same day I delivered the oration for Sir John Monash, talked about the relationship with the UK as being akin to being wedded to a corpse. I mean, really, in a military town? I know that some of the editorials are often written in a metropolitan city far away and disseminated around the regional papers that this group owns—and more is the pity. But seriously, we should be proud that we are a defence town. I certainly am proud that I belong to a tri-service town and I'm also proud of the fact that I have unmistakable and unshakeable faith in young people who will thankfully stand up and fight for our nation if the need arises.

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