Tania Lawrence (Hasluck, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I'm reflecting on the address today by the Hon. James Marape. He noted that Australians often don't understand just how much history we have in common. I have to agree, if only because my husband, Nenad Djurdjevic, and his brother Dan, having grown up in Rabaul and Kavieng in the 1970s, regaled me with memories of playing in the ruins of World War II battlements and tunnels. But I came to learn about the battle of Rabaul and how it informs our contemporary strategic thinking.

In January 1942, the strategic port of Rabaul—then an Australian territory—was invaded. It was our first blood in the Pacific War. Across that month, Rabaul was attacked by hundreds of aircraft and an invasion force of more than 5,000. The taking of Rabaul was swift, efficient and deadly. The desperate actions by the Australian troops, outnumbered, as Corporal Norm Furness recounted, at a ratio of about 10 to one, were not successful, and they were ordered to retreat and fight a guerrilla war for which they were completely ill-prepared and unequipped. The total enemy force soon numbered 15,000, and, at its peak in 1943, over 110,000. More than 1,000 Australian soldiers and civilians were brutally massacred, murdered or died tragically as prisoners of war, as did an unknown number of New Guineans.

As Prime Minister Marape said today, there are security lessons in history for PNG and Australia. How fortunate we are for the friendship and the shared values of our nearest neighbour, Papua New Guinea, a friendship forged through adversity.

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