Jenny Ware (Hughes, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

On Anzac Day, Australians gather in towns and cities around the structures we know as war memorials, of which there are around 5,000 in towns and suburbs throughout our country. Many small towns erected these structures to commemorate and remember their dead in the aftermath of the devastation of World War I.

The Australian War Memorial here in Canberra is a memorial and museum dedicated to the preservation of Australia's war history. Its vision was articulated by its founder, Charles Bean, who witnessed Australians fighting from the Gallipoli landing to the Western Front and through to the Armistice. When he returned from the front, Charles Bean simply wrote 'blackened men everywhere, torn and whole, dead for days'. A mortally wounded Australian asked of him: 'Will they remember me in Australia?' Bean, in announcing the memorial, said, 'Here is their spirit in the heart of the land they loved and here we guard the record in which they themselves made.'

'Will they remember me in Australia?' Well, we remember them throughout Australia and especially at the Australian War Memorial. The Roll of Honour records the names of over 103,000 members of the Australian armed forces who have died during or as a result of war. When we visit the memorial we are struck by the serenity, the stillness, the simplicity, the poignancy, the respect, the remembrance, the tomb of the unknown soldier, the Flanders poppies that adorn the Roll of Honour.

Therefore, what occurred on 14 June and last Saturday night with the defacing of the Australian War Memorial and the Korean and Vietnam War memorials on Anzac Parade in Canberra was a most egregious and despicable act, an attack on one of our most important national sites and on one of our most important traditions. There was desecration through graffiti with words of violence including 'river to the sea' and 'blood on your hands'.

However, even more despicable and egregious has been the response of the Greens party to this desecration. Yesterday, the Greens in the other place, led by Senator Steele-John, with the imprimatur of his leader, refused to support a motion containing the defacing of the memorials. The excuse given was a nebulous link that graffiti represented freedom of speech and a peaceful protest. The hypocrisy from the Greens is this: the very reason that the members of the Greens party have the privilege of being able to serve in this place and the other, the privilege of living in a democratic country that has ideals of freedom of speech and expression, that allows peaceful protest, is because of the men and women of our defence forces who have sacrificed themselves, many of whom made the sacrifice to ensure that future Australians could enjoy these very freedoms.

The Greens, by their behaviour, by their refusal to condemn these acts have again demonstrated they are an extremist party, out of touch with most Australians, out of touch with the very values and moral code that underpin us as a nation. The Greens respect our right to protest provided it is on an issue of their choosing. The Greens proclaim freedom of speech, provided it is in line with their ideology. The Greens speak for equity for the disabled, provided the disabled are not members of our defence forces. The Greens will stand up for those killed in conflict, provided they are not members of our ADF. The Greens condemn genocide, provided it is not the Holocaust. The Greens support a safe workplace, safe education, provided the workers and the students are not Jewish. The Greens espouse the importance of our history, provided it is their version of history, provided it does not remember or acknowledge the heroism of Australians in war and peacekeeping missions.

But our military history matters to most Australians and when this or other memorials are graffitied we disrespect that history, we disrespect those 103,000 who are listed on the Roll of Honour. And we also disrespect every other Australian who has served our country in the ADF—who has served our country willingly, bravely and often at great personal cost and sacrifice. Often they return very different to the way that they left.

Will we remember in Australia? Yes. To that unknown soldier: we will remember you and we will continue to support the monuments, the memorials and the museums that support and remember your service. And at every opportunity, we will call out and we will condemn all and every attempt to do otherwise. The Greens should have condemned the defacing of these memorials; their failure to do so means that the Greens themselves stand condemned. Thank you.

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